


Caustic Captivity

by greed (kingkirkwall), psychovampireboi666



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Amanda (Detroit: Become Human) Being an Asshole, Bad Parent Amanda (Detroit: Become Human), Blood Drinking, Blood and Gore, Character Turned Into Vampire, Dubious Consent, Elijah Kamski & Gavin Reed are Siblings, Elijah Kamski Being Elijah Kamski, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Hurt Gavin Reed, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Mind Manipulation, Multi, Muteness, Non-Consensual Touching, Panic Attacks, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Torture, Protective Hank Anderson, Psychological Torture, Rape Aftermath, Rape Recovery, Rape/Non-con Elements, Selectively Mute Gavin Reed, Suicidal Thoughts, Temporary Character Death, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Torture, Trans Gavin Reed, Trans Male Character, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:28:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 34,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23868298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingkirkwall/pseuds/greed, https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychovampireboi666/pseuds/psychovampireboi666
Summary: Newly-turned vampire Gavin wakes up a prisoner of the undead Stern brothers.Navigating their dynamics becomes a full time job on top of planning his escape.
Relationships: Connor/Gavin Reed, CyberLife Tower Connor | RK800-60 & Gavin Reed, CyberLife Tower Connor | RK800-60/Markus, Hank Anderson & Gavin Reed, Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed
Comments: 2
Kudos: 36
Collections: A DBH Vampire AU (when the idea takes over the writers)





	1. safe from the rain

**Author's Note:**

> Gavin seems like the victim, and we don't want to ignore that, but the dynamic will shift.  
> He'll be able to regain control and get his own agency again, we promise.  
> POV shifts - originally written as an RP.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please heed the warnings.  
> This chapter includes explicit rape/non-con elements.

Gavin opened his eyes, gasping as he realized he couldn't see anything. His body instantly tensed, and he immediately became aware of several things all at once. He was _naked,_ and shivering, on his back, spread eagle on what must be a large, soft bed, and his wrists and ankles were bound by something, pinning him in the position. He whimpered as he arched, becoming intimately familiar with an _agonizing_ hunger, tearing a hole through him, and he writhed as he began to panic, tugging at the bindings.

* * *

His brothers were older than he was, but they'd been turned around the same time. Still, they never let Nines forget it, so every so often he had to remind them about it. It was how he'd gotten his name--Nine kills in his first year as a vampire. Not just kills, but _hunters_ and he wore that title now like a badge of pride. Only his brothers used his real name now.

Maybe that's why they hadn't fought him on keeping a hunter captive, wondering if he'd change his title with the new kill. Nines didn't think he would. This one hardly seemed worthy of it--not that Gavin would appreciate the honor for what it was.

The human was so beneath him that tying him up like a pet had seemed only natural.

Now, watching him writhe there on the bed, Nines raised an eyebrow in mild interest. He’d noticed that being too eager to engage made the hunter more _excitable._ Like he got off on the attention. That could be exploited later, but for now he simply watched.

* * *

Gavin panted, cursing as the hair on the back of his neck stood up on end and heat shot down his spine. His pulse quickened, and he hissed out a shaky breath, gritting his teeth as he felt himself grow swollen and wet. He growled, jostling against the bindings around his wrists as hard as he could.

* * *

He made his way over, despite his best efforts to not indulge the former human for his obvious needs for attention, Nines was a tactile predator. He reached out with an _almost_ gentle hand at the back of Gavin's neck.

"Welcome to your new life," he told him, letting the fangs show between his lips as he spoke.

* * *

Gavin flinched violently at the touch, blinking up and staring in shock as he got a good look at the person to whom the voice belonged. He clenched down on instinct, arching and trembling as icy blue eyes roved over his body. "When I get out of this," he _hissed,_ gasping as he cut the inside of his mouth on too sharp teeth. "When I get out of this, I'm going to f-fucking kill you, _leech."_

* * *

The vampire smiled almost fondly, not because he cared for the man but because this reaction was so incredibly naive. He brought his hand back around, thumb tracing over his neck there where he'd bitten before. "You don't remember yet, do you?" Nines realized. "You will. You _enjoyed_ the bite. You came. It was intoxicating to me, watching you suffer and hate yourself even more for enjoying it. You're mine now."

* * *

Gavin jerked away from the touch, arousal and shame burning through him at the words, and he bit back a moan, furiously beating back the hazy, drunken lust that pulled at him. His hips jerked in a tiny aborted thrust, and he growled, looking up at the other vampire with a disgusted look on his face. Focusing on the sharp spike of hunger helped when the hazy lust shivered over him again.

* * *

The fond smile shifts to something more sinister, and it darkens the rest of his features too, the vampire glancing down the line of Gavin's body with lust. "You're not what I was expecting," he admits. Not opposed to it, clearly, but trying to understand it as he looks at the source of arousal.

* * *

Gavin thrashed, spasming as he tried to close his legs. His folds were throbbing, and he found it harder to breathe as his struggling made them slide wetly together. "If you're concerned that your fucking prisoner doesn't meet your usual standards for muff, I'm sure a guy like you can shop around at _Build-A-Bitch,"_ he growled, baring his teeth with wild eyes.

* * *

Nines' eyes flickered with want as he watched Gavin move around, and he reached up to tighten the binds on his hands to add more pain to it. The circulation of blood towards his cunt instead was delightful to the vampire. He was actively fighting the desire to bite.

"You misunderstand," the vampire assured him, almost annoyed and disappointed that the former human was so stupid about this.

* * *

Gavin whined as the sharp feeling only made his cunt twitch, body stiffening up as he tried to stop his hips from rocking forwards. His rage burned brightly alongside his arousal as the other vampire's touch lingered. "Why don't you enlighten me, then," he spat.

* * *

He considered that--explaining his reasoning would be a torture in and of itself, but the _not knowing_ would probably drive him more wild in the end. Nines was all for tormenting him in every way possible. "Do you want me to?" he offered, with no intention to really do so. "Or would you prefer I just go down on you until you forget you don't need to breathe anymore?"

* * *

Gavin bit back the immediate, irritated _Yes!_ that almost tumbled from his lips at the first question. He was dripping, now, and a tremor rocketed through him as he stared into the other vampire's eyes with a burning gaze. "Explain," he demanded instead, wary of granting even a small permission to a leech.

* * *

Oh this one was going to be _difficult._ Nines smirked, a fanged look as he watched the man. He brought a hand down between Gavin's legs, fingertips pressing in with years of experience that told him his touch was considered rough to humans. Gavin was a vampire now though, he'd be treated like one, and Nines didn't hesitate to make the small circles of movement against his clit there a bit hard. _"No,"_ he replied easily.

* * *

Gavin cried out, violently arching as a finger slid inside his twitching hole, the sting only making him burn brighter and hotter with fear and disgust, and the horrible, incredibly distracting and _arousing_ bastard middle ground: _intrigue._ His eyes squeezed shut and he gasped, panting as he began to pull desperately at the bindings over his wrists. _"Stop,"_ he said, voice shaking as he throbbed, whimpering as he imagined being stretched out by a brutally rough cock, head lolling from pounding thrusts as this stranger, this _leech,_ used him, _railed_ him, fucked his slick hole until he was begging for it like a little whore. He let out a breathy, choked moan at the thought, eyes wide as his cunt twitched and clenched around the finger.

* * *

There were few vital signs he could watch now to see how Gavin reacted in ways he wouldn't vocalize. Humans were easier to read--their hearts picked up in pace, the blood rushed to different areas, and they gave off an aura of _desperation._ Without blood pressure to focus on, Nines was left to deduce what he could from the other man's expression instead.

It was almost disappointing how quickly he seemed to fall apart, but he could toy with that too. Nines _did_ stop, but he left his hand there between Gavin's legs, gripping him almost painfully possessive, two fingers pressing inside, palm pressing against his swollen clit as he leaned down and licked at his face to taste the remnant of human tears there from before he'd been turned. "You don't really want that," he assured Gavin, whispering the words against his ear, breathing out there at his skin even though breath wasn't necessary. He knew it would drive the new vampire's senses wild.

* * *

Gavin's head spun as warm breath hit his ear, and he choked, legs trembling as they fell open wider in an attempt to pull away from both Nines' face and the vampire's hand still inside him. "Leave me alone, or let me go," he grit out, eyes alight with fury. His pupils narrowed into slits, and he bared his teeth again, wickedly sharp fangs glinting in the low light. He snapped at the other vampire, a different kind of lust hazing over him for a moment: an intensely burning bloodrage that he instinctively shied away from, but also itched to tear into with shaking hands.

* * *

Nines turns his head, nipping at Gavin's skin lightly--not enough to draw blood--but a reminder that he has fangs too, and he knows how to use them, has far more practice. "No," he replied again. It's his new favorite answer to anything the young vampire asks him for, he's decided.

"That hunger you feel now," Nines told him softly. "Do you want me to help you with that?" He can assume what the answer will be, but asked him anyway, wanting Gavin to vocalize it.

* * *

Gavin's face distorted in rage, and he jerked forwards, slamming his head against the other vampire's face, still completely oblivious to the changes that had already overtaken his body, including his strength. **"Fuck. Off."** He growled, white hot spots of anger flickering through him at the gentle, patronizing tone.

* * *

Nines barely flinched at the hit, but he did lift his head back, bringing a hand up to wipe the blood at his broken nose even as it healed. He brought his hand up and caught Gavin's gaze as he licked the blood off the backs of his own knuckles, making a show of it, knowing the scent alone is going to drive those new senses wild, but seeing it will make it more intense. His nose healed before he could gather much more blood, but he was also smirking now, a brow raised in challenge as if to ask _'what now?'_

* * *

Gavin stilled, making sure to continue taking deep breaths in case holding his breath made him more aroused. His mind flew through any possible scenarios that ended with him eventually getting away from the leech, and his eyes prickled with tears as he realized the price for his eventual freedom may cost something locally considered to be far more precious. His mouth set into a grim line, and he took a deep breath, trembling as he let the scent of blood wash over him. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying not to think too hard about what he was resigning himself to do, and licked his lips, a bitten off moan escaping him as he saw the blood in the vampire's mouth. His cunt clenched around the finger still inside him.

* * *

The vampire turned his gaze down towards where his hand rested against Gavin, and he made a calculated choice to pull his fingers out slowly, bringing them up to his mouth to lick them. Again, making a show of it, and catching Gavin's gaze as he went about it. The former human responded particularly nice to that in his mind, and he wanted to explore it.

* * *

Gavin bit his lip, dread and _rot_ filling his throat as he whimpered, and he trembled, watching with wide eyes. He let out a shaky breath as his hips twitched, legs falling open, and he squeezed his eyes shut, shaking as he slowly, haltingly, bared his throat.

* * *

Nines looked at him, grinning a bit. There was the urge to bite--it was always there, but he didn't struggle with it as much as his brothers did. He had far more self control. And denying Gavin had been too much fun so far, but what if...

"No," he replied again, amusement in his tone now as he reached for one of Gavin's hands to free it. A show of trust or a lack of fear at what the new vampire might manage, he'd leave that up to Gavin to decide. But he turned his own head towards the new vampire instead, keen on getting him to _understand_ what he was, finally. Offering him a taste was the most gut wrenching way he could come up with, aside from maybe submerging Gavin until he realized he didn't need to breathe. But this was better. If Gavin bit him, it would be good for both of them.

* * *

Gavin's pupils widened, his eyes nearly black with arousal, and his breath stuttered when he realized what the other vampire meant. He looked up at him with a shaken, misplaced feeling of _betrayal,_ and he flinched away, closing his eyes even as he shuddered under the heavy lust and nearly painful urge to sink his teeth into the flesh.

_"No,"_ he said, voice raw and sounding like gravel.

* * *

Nines bristled a bit in response, pulling away from Gavin, regretting untying one of his hands immediately. It was, perhaps, the first time he showed anything but an amused calm around Gavin. A flicker of emotion that betrayed his thoughts on the matter, because no one told him no. It didn't work that way.

* * *

Gavin fought down any reaction as he watched a tiny spark of _something_ flicker across the leech's face instead of bland indifference, and he tried to center himself, focusing on the tiny thread of anger he could taste in the air that was not his own. Hot shame cooled into a calm, stiletto sharp malice, and he schooled his own expression into one of indifference. He saved throwing the _'what now?'_ back into the other vampire's face out of spite for the amusement of his own head, betraying nothing.

* * *

He growled, a low, feral sound in the back of his throat, and he reached for Gavin's neck and squeezed. If he didn't want to learn what he was by biting, he'd learn by not breathing. It was cruel, but there was an anger to his grip now, a strength that would crush bone if the pathetic pet beneath him were still human. He wanted to show Gavin what he was, and he wanted it to _hurt_ the entire fucking time.

* * *

Gavin tensed, writhing again as he tried to flinch away from the touch. The leech was getting into his head, fucking with him with little games, and he snarled, the bloodrage swallowing the bloodlust. He desperately focused on the sharp hatred slicing into and out of his chest all at once, and _agony_ seeped into the drunken haze clouding his mind, sobering him enough to silently track the vague feeling of confusion washing over him. He was bracing himself for a choke that would not come.

* * *

He growled again, this time out of frustration, looking more disheveled than ever with a few loosened strands of hair out of place in front of his eyes now and his grip tightening a bit. Nines shifted his arm up after a moment, squeezing Gavin’s jaw to make him open it from the pain, and he forced his other wrist down against those new fangs. It hadn’t been how he’d wanted the first bite to be, but Nines could be adaptable if angered enough.

* * *

Gavin felt his cunt quiver as hot blood spilled onto his tongue, and he immediately banked the wild bloodcraze that burst into flames within him, withdrawing deep into himself. He wrapped his mind in the calm, silent revulsion, divorcing his attention from what was happening. He went limp, letting the blood drip from his slack mouth.

* * *

It only frustrated Nines more that Gavin could withdraw and appear almost _submissive_ to it, that he had a method of dealing with it. That wasn’t how it was supposed to go! This was a game for him, not Gavin, and this time the noise he made wasn’t just angry it was _dangerous._ “If I could fucking kill you all over again, I _would,"_ he snapped bitterly, pulling his wrist away and standing up away from the bed entirely to pace. It was a nervous habit, but it was the only thing currently keeping him from ripping Gavin’s spine up through his chest and tossing it aside.

* * *

The piece of him still awake, blazing with a freezing, vitriolic flame, tracked the other vampire's movements, and he gently pushed away the wave of panic that tried to crash over him. A thread of peace wove itself alongside the taste of foreign anger at the threat, and he endured, the temptation to _chase,_ to _hunt_ like he had been trained to slipping away.

* * *

“I hate you,” Nines told him, already knowing it was a lie. He didn’t hate him completely, because Gavin was too _interesting_ to simply hate. He hadn’t realized yet that he was hard as he paced in front of the bed, ignoring the primal urge of _want_ this pathetic man brought out in him. The _needs_ he had awoken. An urge to take and destroy and have that Nines hadn’t felt in years, because most of his victims were a passing thought, walking food or a temporary toy. He couldn’t let himself consider the implications of his turning someone to simply keep them around longer, turning a human so that he could torture him more and have him survive it. But it was the reasoning all the same, whether he allowed himself to consider it or not. And it was why he was so angry now—because Gavin had told him ‘no’ and something about that had stirred him.

* * *

The calm fire devoured any outward reaction he had once been responsible to summon from himself, and the confession, _-for that's what it was, and the leech was more foolish than he originally anticipated for letting it slip-_ sustained his serenity. He easily sloughed off more panic, warming himself mentally as he acknowledged that his body felt numb, the echoes of adrenaline, arousal, and shock settling deep into his bones. He remained circumspect.

* * *

The vampire paused, glaring at him, expression dangerous again. “Maybe you’re not worth the risk,” he muttered, talking more to himself now. His eyes caught sight of Gavin, still angry at his calm in the obviously deadly storm, fixed with lust on how wet he still was. He approached the bed slowly, considering a new tactic, staring at the younger vampire’s cunt with a tilt of his head. When he shifted to lean over the bed it was with a predatory gracefulness, like a snake slithering up between his legs. He leaned down and licked at the slick folds there.

* * *

Bloodlust tore at him, searing what felt like holes into his flesh with how holty it flared. He closed his eyes, cooling the bursts into a smoulder, and he immediately made a decision on what he would be able to stand, and what he would do if the leech managed to surprise him. He didn't waste his energy on trying to flinch anymore, focusing away from his physical reactions to the stimuli, and he started to pick apart the leech's motivations instead, letting himself entertain the possibility that his theory had been correct. Maybe this leech, _-the revolting, monstrous creature before him-_ did carry enough humanity within himself to _matter,_ in the end. He let the theory fall away, along with the quiet observation that his defiance had given him a piece of power over his captor, however small, and he gently wove it to rest with the other pieces he already held.

* * *

Nines was ruthless. He hadn’t expected this particular area of expertise to work with this human—appearances had deceived him and he had been surprised to find that only made Gavin more desirable, a puzzle to solve later—but for now he was focused on the taste of him, tongue moving in an angle that kept his fangs to himself for now. And even though the very obvious femoral arteries nearby weren’t possibly throbbing the way he thought they were with Gavin’s newly dead heart unmoving, the urge to bite down and taste was still there. Nines made himself focus though, bringing his hand up to press two fingers up inside of the new vampire again, tonguing at his clit, wanting to feel his body close tight in response even if he noticed his pet was unfortunately retreating into his mind again. He’d have to find a way to bring Gavin back from that when he wasn’t otherwise occupied assaulting his swollen cunt like he hadn’t fed on anything nearly this delicious in ages. And maybe he hadn’t.

* * *

Gavin breathed through the abuse to his body, a wry acknowledgement to the advantage of his physical arousal, and how it eased most of the pain that might have once harrowed him in this situation. Alternatively, the intertwined threads of pain and pleasure had the potential to drive him into an even higher state of bloodlust, like a vicious existential feedback loop. He breathed, knowing the leech was desperate now, if he was prioritizing Gavin's wet sex over other methods available. The heat from his physical body felt dull, and he gently brushed it aside. If the choke would not come, he would learn how to choke himself away into nothing at all. Unyielding.

* * *

The less Gavin reacted in his facial expressions the more upset Nines got. This deplorable creature was beneath him in every way he could think of, and yet he already had the vampire working to make him fucking _react._ It was the kind of thing his brothers could never learn had happened, they would never let it go, a failure he would be tormented for forever. And maybe it was that thought alone that drove him to try to get the new vampire to scream, pausing from tonguing at him to turn his head and finally bite into his thigh. Nines didn’t stop with his fingers, merciless as he buried them in and out with aggressive thrusts, but at least this way he could _feed_ too.

* * *

Gavin let the heat slide over him, white-hot pain melting into calm fury. The scent of blood hit him, laced with surprise, fading as he analyzed the shifting balance of sensation, a pause as he reflected on the unfamiliar nature of feeling nearly _immune_ to something. He banked the fire, pulling himself back to his center. His mental landscape grew into a tiny garden, and he watched the sky, divorcing his head further away from his reality, easy as pulling weeds. He worked with gentle hands, shedding a wave of panic at the conclusion that something had changed- It was definitely not supposed to be this _easy_ to find the stasis he sought in between serenity and rage.

* * *

There was something there in the blood, a shift in his taste. It was the first time Nines had tasted Gavin since turning him, and he hadn't been prepared for the difference. It was an almost bitter hint of something floral. The vampire moaned against his flesh, fangs sinking in fully, tongue pressing in to lap at the wounds he was causing. He was careful to not tear too much once he finally did pull his fangs out. He licked almost gently at the puncture marks as they healed, already wanting to taste more. He hadn't realized that his hand had stopped moving, fingers inside of Gavin, too distracted by the blood now trickling down his chin to notice.

* * *

_There it was._ He could taste the shift, even here. _The moan-_ Voice sounding nearly dazed as the leech finally gave into the urge to bite him, abandoning his clumsy fumbling to exploit Gavin's lust in favor of sating his own for Gavin's blood. _The gentle touch-_ A single indulgence, and he was already curbing the rough treatment from earlier, not to mention the way his fingers had fallen still. The leech, it seemed, was already training himself to cherish Gavin, losing his role, and failing to commit to his heavy hand. Gavin let the thought crumble, and he knew the leech was weak for him, unable to resist the golden apple. He had poisoned himself with vice, forgetting virtue in his gluttony.

Gavin had researched every scrap of information he could get his hands on that described the rare, well-nigh apocryphal accounts of the intense intimacy of the vampires of old, and the powerful bloodbonds they once forged with lovers took. The thread he held now was _different,_ it made him feel a sluggish flash of excitement, and he left it alone, building a wall around the temptation and sheathing it in barbed wire. He knew it was a fledgling bond with the leech, most likely accidental, and there was a possibility he was the only one aware of its existence. Desperation would not be a good look on the other vampire, but he would welcome it, nonetheless. He doused the swell of panic, and calmed.

* * *

He was a picture of tousled anxiety when he lifted his face back, pulling his hand away from the man beneath him. Nines was only vaguely aware of the wet state of his fingers, the scent of the younger vampire’s unwanted arousal there even if the pet beneath him had tried his best to ignore it. Biological responses never listened to emotional reasoning, but for the first time in his vampire existence Nines didn’t know if he could exploit that in a savage way.

It puzzled the vampire, but more than that it _angered_ him. He brought his hand up to wipe at the blood on his mouth, catching a taste of Gavin’s cunt there but ignoring it against his tongue in favor of glaring at him instead. It was a menacing expression that Gavin wouldn’t recognize for it’s real level of danger until he knew him better. Maybe he’d never know how close he’d come to being dusted right then and there, because Nines growled one final time before turning to storm out of the room. He couldn’t _deal_ with this right now. But he’d be back. The lingering reality of leaving a new, probably starving vampire tied to a bed like a toy was a promise of that in and of itself.

* * *

Gavin let out a single, gasped breath before he silenced himself. He could feel, distantly, the tremors that shook through his body, and the sting of blood from a tear in between his legs. He felt gutted at the ugly, traitorous thought that he was almost disappointed that the leech _didn't_ fuck him like he had been prepared for, and he looked up.

The sky in the garden grew dark, and waves of revulsion, hatred, and despair rose around him, staining the clean, pale lines of his garden with rain that was inky black, spreading it like thick tar. He curled up around the warmth of the fire; his fury, the piece of him that paid the most attention so he could remember this, the one that held him still as silent tears fell. The fire pulsed calmly, like a pump, and it kept him safe from the rain.


	2. i understand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please heed the warnings.  
> This chapter includes explicit rape/non-con elements, temporary character death, and implied/referenced suicide.

The next time Nines walked into the room he was wearing all black. Connor had teased him about it, but it was an intimidation tactic no matter what his brothers thought--the subtle differences in his appearance from his carefully tended hair to the open show of fangs from the moment he set foot in the dark room are all calculated to put Gavin on edge and make him pause to wonder what the vampire might try next.

He started by walking over and simply untying every bind on Gavin's limbs, freeing him for the first time in a week. He didn't put the _collar_ he had in his hands on the young vampire yet, but he didn't hide it either, simply blinking a few times as he looked at Gavin through intense, blue eyes from where he sat on the side of the bed. It was an almost casual charade of what might be a lover's familiarity with the setting, sitting down without needing invitation. Sometimes Nines could keep up his human appearance this way, a mask designed to let the predator get closer to his victims as he played the part.

* * *

Gavin watched him, eyes burning as his body twitched, trying to curl away from the leech. His hunger and his hate were his constant companions now, and the jarring lucidity of seeing the leech just made him feel more exhausted. He silently shook as he curled up on his side, unwilling to remain splayed on his back.

He stared at the wall past the leech's head, rocking himself next to the fire as a chill seeped into the garden. He frowned. The leech must be trying to lie, maybe it was trying to go for the whole _It was for your own good_ argument. He sighed internally, wondering why the leech suddenly found it necessary to try to lie to him, and he wondered idly how long it would take until he starved to death.

* * *

He considered Gavin for a blink of silence, then glanced at his wrists, watching the already healing wounds there as they faded slowly to nothing. If Gavin hadn't noticed by now he was either a complete idiot or actively _ignoring_ it. And Nines knew he wasn't an idiot.

Gavin was beautiful, but he wasn’t stupid.

The vampire opened his mouth to say something twice before finally choosing the words he thought might properly convey what he needed to explain. “You were quieter than I imagined. Being locked in here. I expected you to scream.”

* * *

Gavin said nothing. If the leech really wanted to insult him, now, with this-this _twisted_ intimacy, then he would endure it. He had learned about the new pain thresholds he was capable of bearing over the last week, and the leech was a fool indeed if he thought his mask held no cracks. He backed away from the barbed wire at the edge of the garden, shivering as the calm fire that eased the cold that bit into him with sharp teeth and claws.

The barbed wire felt warm, and he held the bright bubble of panic, soothing it like it was a wild animal that had wandered into his garden by mistake. It had been too long, the leech was keeping him alive for some other purpose than prey, and the sight of the collar certainly wasn't _helping._

* * *

If his heart still moved it would have fluttered then at the curious sight of Gavin actively _ignoring_ him. He wasn't used to that at all, and he was getting less and less better at hiding his frustration with that.

“Doesn’t matter,” Nines assured him, reaching up to casually place the collar around the other man’s neck, wondering if he’d even fight him on it. “You will scream," he explained with a tone that said he knew he was absolutely correct about this. "Maybe not tonight. Or even this week or month, but you _will_ scream.”

* * *

Gavin watched the calm flames, sparking with anxiety that he reached through to grasp at the information: the leech easily expected for him to be here for another month, at least. The same one who, for some reason, indulged a turned hunter, one he had even said himself, _Wasn't worth the risk._ How could a vamp bloodbind a mate without noticing? What made him special enough to kept?

He tracked the haggard look that he could read on the leech's face by now, and wondered if the vamp was all alone up here, fumbling through the forgotten instincts that must be pulling at him to _thrall_ and _collar,_ the urge to share bites and blood between them like they were lovers, and not something else entirely.

* * *

Nines was quiet, looking him over for a moment once the collar was in place like he was trying to figure out if he even liked the way it looked. "Do you have a name?" he asked finally after a while. He knew that Gavin did, had gone through his belongings enough to know far more than the hunter probably wanted him to, but this was an exercise in seeing how much the other man might give away.

* * *

Gavin considered the weight of the collar, the hesitant way he'd presented it, and locked it into place around his neck, and the way the leech watched him carefully, looking for any sign of reaction.

He curled around the burning light, sighing inside his head as the world fell away, and focused on the heat in front of him. His eyes went glassy and unfocused.

* * *

"You won't ignore me forever," Nines promised him. And, almost as if to prove his point, he leaned forward to rest his forehead against the side of Gavin's head, breathing in his scent lightly. He remembered what it felt like to turn the new vampire, to feel his heart slowly come to a gradual stop until the silence settled in. He'd held the body far longer than was required for the ritual, but no one had been there to judge him for it.

* * *

The barbed wire was warm, the black stains on the garden fading into a ugly, dirty grey as the leech shared his space. He frowned, glancing over his shoulder at the low wall he'd built around the bond. He didn't want to touch it, but he did want to _get away,_ and his standards for what exactly the _lesser evil_ was here continued to fluctuate. He hesitantly held up a palm inside the garden, reaching it out towards the wire and nearly flinching as feelings rushed over him like water. There was an almost _unbearable_ loneliness filling the leech, a hole torn through him that made him want to flinch away.

* * *

Nines frowned, fangs showing a bit against his lip, and his eyes shifted from the masked blue to their natural red. The blue was a lie of a life he could never have again, something stolen from him that he'd never earned or been worthy of to begin with.

The vampire stood up, pacing again, calmer this time, thoughtful. There were so many ways to torment this younger vampire, but the startling realization that he almost didn't _feel_ like torture was blaring like an error code on a computer HUD. He glanced at Gavin again, pausing in his walking. The hunter sat there still and stalwart, skilled in a practiced calm. “Has the hunger blinded yet? I remember it subsiding after the first day, but it comes back around in waves.”

* * *

The lust for blood was an old ache, by now, one of the first things he had become aware of once he had woken up, and it was almost laughable to imagine it easing away at all, instead of growing bigger and sharper with each passing moment.

He stretched out next to the fire in his mind, rolling to lay on his back and look up at the sky. His hunger was feeding the trees, and they had begun to grow tall, full of flower blossoms and flitting birds. They sang to each other, but he could never hear it from the ground. He smiled up at a clouded sky, a little empty, a flicker of misplaced joy as he imagined this place out there, somewhere, still blooming after his death.

* * *

Nines made his way back over, reaching for the collar. He hadn't attached any chains to it yet, but the vampire pulled him up by it easily anyway, nails a bit sharper against Gavin's throat in his rush--he didn't mean to let the claws out, but touching Gavin brought it out in him apparently.

"You're a fool if you think you can hold out on this," Nines told him bitterly. "The hunger _always_ wins."

* * *

Gavin's head lolled as the vampire grabbed him, warmth licking at his throat as his body began to shake, tremors shivering over him as the leech's touch lingered. He began to sag forwards, nearly toppling forwards off the bed before the leech caught him, cradling his naked body as it trembled.

Underneath it all, even now, the vampire was still weak for him, and Gavin knew the other vampire had been starving himself too, driven forward by a single taste.

* * *

If he'd been able to know what Gavin was thinking, what he was _realizing_ he would have snarled and growled in response, made a show of insisting that wasn't the case. But Nines was met with quiet instead, the lack of noise echoing in the room. He'd been dead long enough to not fear it anymore, but for some reason it bothered him coming from Gavin. The vampire wasn't sure how he knew it--maybe because the former human had been so very _vocal_ during their first encounter--but he knew this was out of character, a defense mechanism against _him._ He wanted to consider it a victory, but something at the pit of his stomach told Nines that he was the one being played here.

He raised the other vampire effortlessly, his feet dangling from the ground at the height difference, and studied the other man’s eyes ruthlessly. “Your silence won’t gain you anything.”

But it already _had_ in Nines’ frustration alone.

* * *

Gavin was weary of listening to this- he wanted the leech to leave him alone so he could rest again. He took a deep breath as he looked at the fire, and he decided to give him a gentle push, _just a little._ He wasn't interested in being cruel, but he knew that he would be unable to talk. Besides, if this worked, it would speak to the vampire in louder, clearer words than he would ever be able to say out loud himself.

He reached a hand into the flame, shivering as it flowed over his skin, adrenaline seeping into him as he intentionally took a step to peek outside the garden. In his real body, his eyes snapped into a hard focus, and the leech froze as he suddenly made direct eye contact. He reached up to hover a hand over the vampire's cheek, skin brushing together as his arm shook. He tangled a hand into the barbed wire at the edge of the garden at the same time. He _pushed,_ gently, lighting up the bond for a moment with his indifference. _**Enough.**_

He knew it worked when the leech gasped, dropping him onto the floor, and he was back in the garden again, banking the heat of the fire as his glassy eyes stared unseeing at the ceiling, having gone limp before he hit the floor.

* * *

Nines was breathing without realizing it, without meaning to _show_ for the first time in decades. His chest rose and fell painfully, lungs screaming at him that this wasn't meant to happen this way, they were _dead_ just let them be dead, but this creature in front of him, this would-be pet was fucking everything up. The vampire’s heart screamed at him _what next, me too?_ and Nines turned away from Gavin entirely, showed his back. It was an insult one predator to another--because he recognized that this hunter was just as much of a monster as he was now.

“Whatever power you _think_ you have here,” Nines said quietly, trying to get his voice to sound more sure and failing. “It’s a lie.” But Nines realized he didn't know if those words were directed at Gavin or himself anymore once they were said.

* * *

Gavin gathered the anger, the sound of harsh, ragged breathing, and the uncertain words, feeding the fire as it pulsed, calm and steadfast. He was surprised that the leech turned to show him his back- and he wondered if the vamp knew what that meant. He recalled his notes as the taste of fury, a wild, uncontrollable blaze of it, lingered in the air.

_Hypervigilance. Outward displays of affection, especially between mates. Bonded vampire pairs that traded bites like vows, the intimacy reforging their bloodbond like refining gold with flame._

The leech was treating him, barely a fledgling, as an equal. Not only that, but he had made the vampire _afraid,_ even if just for a moment.

* * *

He knew the tides had shifted and he was drowning in it now, the way he'd before imagined choking the new vampire until he _accepted_ what he was. And Nines considered that for a moment, a slight grin curling one corner of his mouth at the irony of it all. It always happened this way, didn't it? He stopped himself from breathing, ignoring the way his lungs almost thanked him for it and his heart rested easy knowing it didn’t need to beat for anyone ever again, least of all this former hunter. The personification of his internal biological make up was perhaps his own attempt at the garden Gavin so easily tended to, focusing on parts of himself Nines knew he could still control if he wanted to--his heart _could_ maybe beat, but he hadn’t had a reason to let it try for a very, very long time.

Nines turned around to look at him, and then he rushed onward, on Gavin in a flash of movement. The collar was used to pull him to his feet again, Nines sinking his fangs into the younger vampire’s neck above the leather where it pressed into his skin. His eyes were red beneath his eyelids as he closed them, and he _fed_ in a frenzy, biting too hard and too deep for it to be enjoyable for a normal creature. Another vampire? _Maybe._ But even then this was pushing it, a desperate cling to violence to gain the upper-hand back in a war he already felt like he’d lost.

* * *

He shook violently as the other vampire bit _harder,_ and he gasped, silent tears streaming down his face. _Finally,_ he thought, relaxing and going limp against him, closing his eyes as he felt the last pieces of _life,_ his garden, the fire, the little bond wrapped in wire- it all began to fade. It was likely he would be dead in a few moments, and he breathed, _relief_ slicing through him.

* * *

He growled, latching on, marking the younger vampire again and again, biting around the collar-- _through_ it in one place, which would weaken it, but Nines hardly had the state of mind to presently be aware of it. He felt the way the hunter's arteries still fought him, so newly dead and weary from the loss of circulation, and begging for more. Nines drank until he was dizzy from it, Gavin practically tossed aside. It was the sort of buzzing effect a blood bond was meant to give, and Nines would be angry about that later, but for the time being he was too delirious with it, laughter openly escaping his fanged grin as he backed up until he was leaning against the wall to slide and sit on the floor there. He had one knee bent as his gaze shifted back to the hunter wherever he'd landed, but he made no move to stand again.

* * *

Gavin shuddered, and he curled into a ball, unable to notice or care that his back was to the other vampire. He wrapped a shaking hand around the collar, beckoning a wisp of flame as he tore it from his neck. He gasped, shivering as he rolled over, and he met the leech's gaze, lucid as he dropped the collar.

Blood began to pool underneath him, and his hand twitched as he gasped for breath he didn't need. He could feel oblivion looming, and he stretched out a hand inside his head, reaching for the bloodbond with a tiny, misplaced sense of _gratitude_ the last flames snuffing out. The last thing he felt was the leech's small, wild panic as death took him for the second time.

* * *

It was the fire that caught Silas' attention, his senses more trained--more _practiced_ to pick up on something happening that wasn't meant to. By the time he rushed into the cage of a room his brother had insisted on entertaining his pet in, Connor wasn't far behind--though their oldest brother's laughter was indication enough the bastard wasn't there to help.

"Take _care_ of him!" Silas snapped though, pulling Connor out of his cloud of amusement long enough to get him nodding as he made his way over to what looked like an inconsolable Nines. This was why bonds were _dangerous,_ why they were _discouraged._ Had Nines never listened to a word he'd said to him? Of course he hadn’t. He was the middle child, no one of importance, probably there entirely by accident, and Connor never let him forget it.

He looked back down at the dead hunter, frowning for a moment before bringing a hand to his chest. They all had gifts, powers that were borne from personality traits too stubborn to die with their bodies. His own particular penchant for healing had translated from life into his death, and his vampiric gift manifested with it now, an ability to call _back_ those soon gone. Only if they were barely gone, a fine print he’d tested before to tragic consequences. But it was a power that went against everything they were now--not predatory, not violent, but giving. It was something Amanda _hated,_ and Silas had only used it _once_ before now. Because it came at a cost, and his eyes were bleeding as he looked down and waited for Gavin to either give in to it completely or accept the way back. He truly hoped--for his brother's sake--that the new vampire wasn't stupid enough to hate himself too much to want to fight another day, even in this new form, even undead.

* * *

Gavin gasped as he was dragged back into being, far too soon for his taste. The fire was white hot as it snapped between his hands in his head, and the garden was cracked, the low wall he had built around the bloodbond crumbling. He picked up the thread and held it between his hands, not surprised to see the way it had begun to unravel. It would be so _painless_ to snap it, now, and then he could die again, easy as pulling weeds.

He stared up at a new leech, frowning a little as he realized _his_ wasn't alone up here at all. He pressed a shaking hand against the leech's sternum, and they both gasped as Gavin gently touched the second leech's bloodbond to the first, lighting them up even as the vampire struggled to keep him from death. _**Enough!**_ He pushed, and he opened his mouth to breathe, a sob escaping him.

* * *

Nines seemed to watch him through water, a distant image he couldn’t quite make out, only vaguely aware of Connor’s voice screaming at him until he felt the sharp _smack_ of his brother’s palm against his face. Nines startled, blinking a few times as he looked at him.

“Richard, I swear to fucking--” Connor didn’t finish the thought, following his brother’s suddenly shifted gaze, taking in the entire thing from the way Nines looked at the dying hunter like he was something to be *mourned* to the understanding in his brother’s eyes at having been right where he was once before in his own undead life. Connor was practically shoved back by the momentum when Nines finally moved past him towards Gavin. “Well fuck me, I guess,” Connor muttered to himself, but he watched them with interest too.

Nines hadn’t realized he was crying, hadn’t realized he wasn’t drowning again he was just looking through tears. He glanced at Silas briefly, noting the worried look before turning his watery gaze towards Gavin again. _”Please,”_ he whispered. He didn't understand how this had happened at all, let alone this fast, but he wasn't going to question it while he knew Gavin was lost in the self hatred limbo he'd once found himself in too.

* * *

Gavin's eyes snapped open from where he had begun to sink back into sleep, and they _burned_ as they bore into the vampire. He released the other leech, following the thread back to remain for good, at least for now. He waited, holding as still as he could with the tremors, and met the other's gaze. Exhaustion and despair began to well up within him as he waited still, the leech frozen in shock, and he let out a ragged, _desperate_ yell, voice rough from lack of use.

* * *

Silas had never seen his brother look more desperate than he did in that moment--including the time he'd been in the exact position the hunter was now. It was a well known fact in their family that Nines could be _lethal_ without much effort, and he was hardly considered the weakest of them, quieter in his kills but still very deadly.

So both of his brothers were a bit surprised when he relented, pulling Gavin into his arms so that the young, screaming vampire’s fangs were near his throat. _”Please,”_ he repeated, almost a whimper this time.

* * *

Gavin _whined,_ digging his hands into the vampire's arms and the fire all at once, and he gasped as the bloodbond lit up inside him at the touch. He closed his eyes, _melting_ against the other as the fight drained out of him, and he rubbed their cheeks together, distantly acknowledging that he was mixing their scents, more misplaced intimacy shared between young vampires that don't know any better. He splayed a palm over the vampire's sternum, pushing him onto his back, and he settled in his lap, pausing to glance up at the other vampires. He looked between them as he pinned their brother to the floor, and he hushed the vampire underneath with a soft noise as he stared as Silas.

* * *

Silas blinked a few times, part of him wanted to actually _ask_ to make sure the young vampire was okay, but he knew Gavin probably wouldn't answer him right now. Not if the way he was glaring at them was any indication. So he glared at his brother instead, giving Nines a _look._ "Don't be stupid again," he snapped, shifting away from them to start for the door. He had to grab a grinning Connor by his shirt to drag him out on his way, because Connor was delighted by the turn of events and wanted to _watch._ Silas decided it was best to not indulge that. For now.

* * *

Gavin looked back down at the vampire, cradling his face with one hand as he draped himself over him, pressing shaking lips to his throat and shivering when the vampire easily turned his head to give him more room. He sighed, jolting a little as he finally let his teeth pierce the warm flesh.

He _moaned,_ gasping as the vampire writhed underneath him, and he gentled his hands, soothing the frenzy until he was gently suckling at the weeping bite, pausing often as he fed to brush kisses against his cheek, his shoulder, the hinge of his jaw. He let the fire guide him, straddling the vampire as he lapped at the blood, moaning again as the fight left him.

* * *

There was a sensation of relief that washed over him, a cooling effect to a heated worry Nines hadn't let himself acknowledge before. And he had his head turned, neck exposed freely as he brought one hand up to Gavin's hair, fingers threaded through to grip and keep him close. It was the gentleness between that made him hard more than the bite itself, and the hand that hadn't been in Gavin's hair was on his hip now, but only for a few seconds until he brought it up to reach for one of the other man's hands with his instead. Fingers entwined, Nines closed his eyes and _submitted_ to being his in whatever fashion the younger vampire wanted for the moment.

* * *

Gavin whimpered as the vampire returned his affectionate touches, and the bond _blazed_ brightly between them. He didn't know how or why he had ended up here, now, and as the _aching_ bloodlust was finally sated, he sobered, lucid, and he began to tremble again. He tucked his face into the vampire's throat, clinging to him tightly as he began to cry. Deep, gut-wrenching sobs carved their way out of his chest, and he shook violently, wanting to flee. He wanted to push the vampire away and he wanted to pull him closer, and he gasped as he tried to figure out what he was supposed to do now.

* * *

Nines held him close and let him work through it, not practiced in comfort but somehow understanding what Gavin needed. Eventually he turned his head a bit, whispered into his ear two words he already hated himself a bit for, but they were spoken before he could really think through how very fucking honest they were. "I _understand.”_

* * *

Gavin's cries slowly calmed as the vampire held him, and his heart seized at the whispered confession. He pulled back to look him in the eye, stroking his cheeks with his thumb and wiping away a stray tear. He bit his lip, whimpering a little as he shifted in his lap, embarrassed that he was _still_ naked, and growing wet as his jostling pressed him up against the warm, muscled body underneath his.

* * *

There was something there, a flicker in their bond that...shame? Nines looked at him for a moment, and for the first time since capturing his would be pet, he almost felt bad about it. Almost. Because there was a hunger there beneath the shame too, and he focused on that instead. It was easier, made him doubt his methods less. In his centuries of existing he'd never had a hunter make him doubt himself the way Gavin did.

"You got blood all over my shirt," he told Gavin, his tone an almost affectionate mockery of fake bitterness, a mild effort of keeping up appearances to preserve their collective pride. "It's ruined now," Nines insisted, glaring half-heartedly as he reached to take it off.

* * *

Gavin watched him, immediately making a small noise as he traced his hands over the vampire's bare chest. He tugged the shirt closer, wrapping it around himself with shaking hands, nearly sobbing in relief as he found the buttons at the bottom and fumbled with them until they were fastened. He glanced back up at the vampire, biting his lip as he climbed off of him and gave them both some space.

* * *

Nines mourned the loss immediately, frowning in a way that almost looked like a pout with his fangs showing just slightly. He hadn't thought the shirt would be used to _cover_ his pet, but he could understand why the desire was there now, could feel it radiating from the younger vampire in waves. The more sadistic side of his being wanted to lunge forward and _take_ anyway, but there was another, more human, part of him that remembered what it had felt like to be dragged back again for the second time from a chance at peace.

So he sat up where he’d been laying on the floor and looked at Gavin for a moment. “You also broke the collar I got for you,” he pointed out. “I’ll need to replace it.”

* * *

Gavin shivered, resisting the urge to climb back into the vampire's lap for more cuddling as he realized how cold he felt. He ignored the words, panic gripping him as he felt himself start to fall away from the world again. He hid his face in his hands, trying to _breathe_ as he fought to stay awake- eyes blinking and rolling wildly as the garden began to _pull_ him under, and away from this place.

* * *

He wanted to insist the other vampire stay there with him in the _now,_ but he also realized all at once, "I need to get you a living meal." It wouldn't be difficult, he was a hunter in his own way, but Gavin would probably have _opinions_ on taking human life that would not be helpful right now.

* * *

Gavin looked at him with dead eyes, but in his mind, he cleared away the rubble and pulled the barbed wire off of the bond. He frowned as he looked at the absolute tangled _mess_ of threads, and he touched it gently, his real hands twitching towards the vampire as he experimented with communicating like this. He had no idea what the other would feel or see, so he started with something simple.

_**Cold.** _

* * *

Nines glanced down at their hands, tilting his head like a reptile studying its surroundings, intrigued because...yes. He'd heard that. “Living blood helps with that,” the vampire insisted. It was easier for him to reconcile making the new vampire feed instead of getting him clothing or a blanket. That seemed far too domestic to allow himself to do.

* * *

Gavin blinked, and he shocked himself when he snorted and rolled his eyes. He thought of _comfort,_ wondering if that one would be hard for the vampire to understand.

* * *

It was new for him, and Nines blinked a few times, trying to get used to this new voice in his head that he recognized he'd welcomed without even realizing it. He'd wanted to collar Gavin, but the younger vampire had the real leash here, didn't he?

So he defiantly adopted a new tactic of purposely _misunderstanding._ "I suppose I could find you a comforter if you'd like."

* * *

Gavin sighed, and he released him, eyes glassy as he curled up inside his garden, sitting close to the warmth of the fire. It began to rain, and this time he could feel it, tiny little cold pinpricks in his skin. He frowned, and wished he understood _why._ He didn't realize he had physically begun to cry again, turning away from the vampire to hide his face and muffle the noise.

* * *

Nines growled. He knew that wasn't what Gavin wanted from him, but he wasn't built for this. Maybe once. When he'd been alive and naive. "I can't be what you want," he snapped. A lie, they both had to know it by now. "I'll go find you a human to feed on." He turned towards the door, but paused, looking back a little lost, a little scared as he added, "I am no more or less than what they made me. That won't change."

* * *

He broke out of it a little, rolling so he could look him in the eye, lying prone on the floor. In his mind he pressed both palms against the bond, and he was able to make a noise, tracking the vampire as he stared from the doorway with wide eyes.

_**I UNDERSTAND**_ , he pleaded, hoping the older vampire could read that one as well.

* * *

The vampire looked at him, and his expression shifted, turning from angry to almost grateful. But it was sad too. "Perhaps I didn't really," Nines lied, but he was also making his way back over, offering Gavin one of his hands. He reached forward because of impatience to close the gap before the hunter could, fingertips pressing against his skin there in feather light touches. It was _far_ too easy to want to be gentle with Gavin, an urge Nines hadn't felt since his heart quit beating.

* * *

Gavin crawled closer, shivering as he wrapped both hands around the offered wrist. He pressed the vampire's hand to his own jaw, eyes slipping shut for a moment as he turned his face to kiss the palm. He shuddered, holding still for a moment before pulling away.

* * *

It was such an intimate gesture, his hands--hands that had killed ruthlessly without hesitation, hands that spent more time covered in blood than anything else, being treated with a kindness he had _not_ earned. Nines tilted his head a bit as he watched, sucking in an unnecessary breath at the feather soft touch of the kiss.

He hadn’t expected it.

The vampire leaned forward when Gavin pulled away, closing in on his personal space without thinking about it, forehead trying to find a place to rest there against Gavin’s skin wherever he could manage.

* * *

Gavin let himself fall onto his back, pulling the vampire until he was on top of him, forehead resting in the curve of Gavin's shoulder. He curled a hand around the back of the vampire's neck, playing with the short hair on the nape of his neck.

In his head, he hesitated, but soon touched their bond as well, sighing as it warmed under his hand.

_**Comfort**_ , he thought, gently.

* * *

The vampire wanted to argue about it again, his mind insisted this wasn't what he was designed for, he wasn't capable of offering what Gavin wanted or needed. And more than that, he hardly deserved it after turning the man against his will and tormenting him. He knew himself well enough to know he hadn't had his fill of that torture yet, even if he recognized there was something _more_ to this now.

Nines ignored it to lay against the younger vampire, closing his eyes after a while, enjoying the soft touch there at his neck. If he paused to really think about it, Nines would have realized this was the first kind touch he’d felt in years. Up to, and including, the unfamiliar warmth that seemed to radiate through their bond now. A feeling of _safety_ he tried to convey in return. But he didn’t know if Gavin could hear it the way he did, didn’t know if he could manage that singular power Gavin seemed to have over the invisible but powerful strand between them. Nines tried to send the thought anyway.

* * *

Gavin tensed as he felt Nines thread a sense of _safety_ into their bond, and he wrapped his arms around Nines' back. In his head he enveloped their bond in warmth, wisps of the flame dancing around his outstretched hand.

* * *

It was probably a lie, Nines reasoned to himself. This was probably not real. It seemed too good to be real after everything he'd put Gavin through, and it definitely wouldn't last, but for now he found himself somewhat at ease. And eventually, without him having even realized how tired he was, Nines slowly drifted off into what was an almost peaceful sleep.

* * *

Gavin stared up at the ceiling with glassy eyes, his hands winding into the vampire's hair. He sighed, pacing around the fire in a muted agitation. He glanced at the glowing coals, biting his lip at the sight of the lowly burning fire. Its light had begun to mute, lately, and he knew it was because his hatred had begun to wither away. The fire flared a little brighter, a little hotter as his fear spiked for a moment, and he felt a tiny sense of relief to know that the fire hadn't completely gone out.


	3. good boy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please heed the warnings.  
> This chapter includes explicit rape/non-con elements.

When he did wake up eventually, Nines was almost startled to realize he'd slept at all. It had been decades since he'd allowed himself the luxury of _actual_ rest, always awake enough to be aware of his surroundings, but the fire that Gavin saw as a weapon Nines looked at as a long forgotten warmth. He'd been dead so long that he welcomed it--the challenge, the conflict. Because he couldn't stay in Gavin's arms forever like this.

The dynamic had shifted, he’d let Gavin find somewhat even footing. Still...

“If I get you another collar, will you keep this one in one piece?” the vampire asked him, a subtle threat there that Gavin really only had one way to answer this question.

* * *

Gavin blinked at him, sitting up so they were close, facing each other. He studied the vampire for a few moments, gaze flickering over him. He brushed his fingertips over the bond, more of a warmth or a greeting than actual words.

He reached for him slowly, telegraphing his movements to test what the vampire would permit. Gavin let out a tiny noise when he wasn't stopped, allowed to cup his palm to the side of the vampire's throat. He kept his grip light, and gentle, and he tilted his own head back- baring his own throat to the vampire.

Gavin met his eye, and nodded.

* * *

For a moment Nines wasn't sure if Gavin realized what he was doing, if he understood how sacred the throat could be to vampires when he touched him like _that._ But then the other man was tilting his head, his throat exposed, and Nines...

He took a breath he didn’t need.

He would have liked to say he hesitated, but he didn’t. Permission granted was something he’d be angry he waited for at all later, but for now the vampire was fangs deep in the other man’s throat, moaning against him.

* * *

Gavin gasped as the fangs pierced deep, and their bond radiated with such intense _emotion_ that the fire blazed whitehot. His mouth dropped open as he let out a shaky moan, biting his lip. The fire wasn't fueled by hate alone, it seemed.

He cradled his hand around the back of the vampire's neck as he fed, splaying it over the skin; gentle, but _possessive._

A breathy sigh escaped him as his eyes grew heavy, and he shivered as he grew a little swollen and wet.

* * *

Nines lost himself in it. He was old enough he usually had better control, but the taste of Gavin, the _feeling_ of his flesh, it unhinged him. It was the sigh that helped him break free, and the vampire pulled his fangs out, a picture of disheveled lust as he looked down at Gavin.

There was the sudden urge to _take_ but he leaned in and kissed the other vampire instead, forced him to taste his blood there against his fangs, tongue pressed in as if to challenge Gavin to fight him on it.

* * *

Gavin gasped as the other vampire kissed him, and he slid his tongue into the other vampire's mouth, whimpering as it cut against sharp teeth. He dug his fingers into the nape of the vampire's neck, claws piercing deep into his skin. Warm blood dripped from his hand, trailing in a ribbon down his arm to his elbow, and he _moaned,_ gasping for breath. His eyes fell shut as he sucked on the other vampire's tongue, bracing his hand on the floor to lean into his space, tugging him closer with the hand pierced into his nape.

Though he didn't know it, his eyes were glowing a faint, pulsing red, the light burning in time with the garden flame.

* * *

He shifted to be above Gavin as he kissed him, one hand on the floor to stay there without falling on him directly, the other reaching between them to see how wet he was. Nines actually growled quietly when his hand found Gavin's cunt, fingers harsh like they'd been before, not quite sure he could be gentle yet with this.

* * *

Gavin thrashed, clenching around the fingers that fucked into him, and he dug his claws deeper into the vampire's nape, moans sharpening into growls. He bit into the vampire's bottom lip, hard enough to break several points of skin, and he groaned, kissing him again and laving his tongue over the beaded blood. He tugged the vampire's head to the side and bit into his neck, moaning as blood hit his tongue and his cunt throbbed with heat.

* * *

There was a moment of surprise when he felt the younger vampire bite him, a flickered thought of 'how dare he not ask first' that was quickly swallowed up by the obscene fucking _moan_ that escaped Nines’ mouth instead. This constant mental battle with himself on wanting his pet to be submissive but enjoying how he wasn’t would weigh on him later, but for now he grew hard against him instead, his own pants were suddenly viewed as the enemy when he realized he’d bitten and been inside of Gavin, but he’d never truly been _inside_ of him yet.

Nines wanted on a level he hadn’t known he could.

The vampire pulled away from his bite a bit violently, growling at the exquisite pleasure the pain of it brought him. He could feel Gavin’s blood still trickling from the corners of his own mouth, tongue running up along his fangs, and he was keenly aware of his own blood as it seeped from his throat where the other vampire’s bite was trying to heal.

He started taking his pants off but paused with his hand on his undone belt. Nines reached down for Gavin’s face, squeezing his jaw a bit painfully to make sure he had his focus when he told him darkly, “You’re mine. I shouldn’t have let you forget that.”

* * *

Gavin splayed both hands over the vampire's collarbones, and he grunted, shoving hard and flipping them so the vampire was on his back. He straddled him, mouthing at the hand that gripped his jaw and resting his hips low. He spread himself over the bulge in the vampire's dark slacks, pressing down as he rested his weight. He pulled the vampire's hand off of his face so he could kiss him, and he pressed both hands against the bond.

_**You gave yourself to me**_ , he whispered to him through their connection, a gentle reminder.

* * *

The animal growl that escaped Nines’ mouth from the back of his throat was completely ferocious, a vocal acknowledgement of just how _displeased_ he was that his _pet_ was was turning things on him as he glanced up. But there was a new reality too as he realized it also made his cock stir that much more, completely interested in the new dynamic that Gavin was insisting existed. There would be other times to ravish him violently.

Perhaps, just this _once,_ he could entertain this.

Nines’ red eyes shifted to a hard glare though, outwardly insubmissive despite the truth of those words shared through the bond Gavin had so much control over. “Then _take_ me,” he challenged with a toothy smirk, fangs showed in way of both a provocation and _thirst._ If this new vampire wanted to prove ownership, Nines welcomed him to try it, the need for a fight still eagerly driving his every response.

* * *

Gavin panted, staring down at the vampire and licking his lips. He held his gaze as he lifted his bloodied arm to his mouth, lapping at the vampire's blood that had wept over the skin and moaning at the taste. He met his eye and smirked, using his other hand to massage his thumb into the bite on the older vampire's throat before he lifted his hips and crawled up the vampire's body.

He hovered over him, kneeling so his legs were on either side of the vampire's head, his folds throbbing wetly as his cunt clenched. Gavin reached down to caress the vampire's chin with his thumb, pulling his mouth open so he could lower himself to his lips.

* * *

It wasn't what he'd expected, and that showed in his expression for a moment as he blinked a few times before finally leaning forward to taste. Nines, for all his bravado before, was almost shy now as he tongued carefully at first. It was a calculated effort to keep his fangs from pressing in against Gavin’s folds, because he didn’t want to bite yet. Not like this.

Instead, he let himself _feed_ in a new way, face pushed up so that his nose pressed up on Gavin’s flesh too. He didn’t need to breathe, and Nines took advantage of that with the way he assaulted the other man with his tongue and lips now, hands shifted up to hold onto Gavin’s hips and hold him forcefully closer.

* * *

Gavin moaned, brushing the vampire's bangs off of his forehead in a tender caress. He arched, letting his head fall back as the vampire licked into him, and heat shot through him. He buried his hands into the vampire's curls, sighing and humming as the tongue fucked deeper.

_**Good. Earn it**_ , he whispered without speaking.

* * *

Maybe it was the gentle touch as Gavin brushed his hair aside, or the way he exposed his neck again when he let his head fall back, but Nines almost _purred_ against him in response, a pleased noise that was very unlike him.

The command though, a direct fucking order from someone who was meant to be _his_ toy, it thrilled him to his undead core, going against the crux of his mental view on how he was meant to act as a vampire. It was a persona he’d had beaten into him until he finally complied, a role he’d played for so long that it felt almost wrong to shed it at any given moment. Later on he would be angry about it, punish the new vampire for it possibly.

But here, now, with _Gavin,_ Nines’ expression softened, and he focused all of his energy on just pleasing the man above him.

* * *

Gavin smiled, breaking the expression to moan louder as the vampire gave in and pleasured him eagerly. He rocked gently over him, voice catching and cracking from disuse, and soon he trembled, whimpering as his cunt quivered and he came with a breathy, quiet cry.

* * *

Nines felt a sense of pride wash over him, of accomplishment. He'd rarely been rewarded positively for his actions--instead his 'reward' had usually been given in the form of a _lack_ of punishment--but Gavin coming for him now was like a breath of fresh air after centuries of drowning in the misery of his constant failures.

And when he _smiled_? Fuck, Gavin’s smile was worth suffering _anything._ Nines decided right then and there, as he still tongued at the vampire above him to help him ride the last waves of it.

* * *

Gavin shuddered, pulling off of his tongue and shifting until he was draped over the vampire again. He kissed him, cradling his jaw before splaying his hands over the vampire's throat. His claws pricked into the skin a little, and he huffed out a breath, using his other hand to tear at the button on his pants. He ripped the fabric in his haste, and he swallowed the vampire's enraged growl with a kiss, a low chuckle shared between their lips.

He wrapped a hand around the vampire's cock, grinding his hips down until he was rubbing himself against it, the folds sliding wetly back and forth over the length. He moaned at the friction, sucking the vampire's bottom lip in between his teeth.

* * *

Gavin felt so wet, so fucking _ready,_ and there was a momentary urge to stay where he was and simply let this happen. But it was short lived, Nines opening his eyes to stare the other vampire down with a lust-filled gaze as he felt Gavin rutting against him. And something inside of him _snapped._

He gripped Gavin’s sides and flipped them over, not at all gentle about it, fangs sinking into Gavin’s shoulder as he shifted his hips down and pressed his dick into him finally. There was a faint scent of blood from somewhere other than the bite, Nines was experienced enough to know the subtle differences. And he made a mental note to ask about that later-- _was he the former hunter’s first? He didn’t know if he should make himself care about that? It was an archaic human taboo to begin with_ \--but he didn’t say a word about it as he started thrusting into him.

* * *

Gavin moaned at the bite, his eyes flying open, and he sucked in a sharp breath as the other vampire's cock forced its way inside him. His cunt was wet and swollen, but the vampire was _huge,_ and he whimpered, pain and pleasure twisting into a knot inside him. The stretch _burned,_ and tears pricked in his eyes, trailing into his hairline at his temple. He cried out as the vampire thrust deeper, and he began to shiver, turning his head to give the vamp more room and going limp.

* * *

Nines pulled his fangs out so that he could bite down again, this time turning his head to sink his fangs into Gavin's throat where he could _taste_ the moans. He recognized the sounds for the treat that they were, something dragged out of Gavin unwillingly, and he cherished them. They were as much _his_ as Nines saw Gavin being, even if the petulant hunter beneath him consistently argued otherwise.

He was ruthless in his movements and thrusts, pulling his fangs out eventually only so that he wouldn’t drain Gavin to death again. He turned his face to nuzzle against the other man’s chin before his lips found Gavin’s mouth in another vicious kiss.

* * *

Gavin was letting out weak moans with each exhale now, and the trembling shook him, unraveled him until he was gasping, arching as an orgasm crashed over him like a wave. He sobbed as the vampire's thrusts only roughened, and his cunt clenched as the cock dragged against the tense, sensitive walls.

His vision darkened around the edges for a moment, and he felt a cold press of fear as he realized his hunger had caught up with him, and his eyes grew heavy. He shivered, and his kiss was weak against the other's mouth.

* * *

If Nines noticed the shift in energy, he hardly showed it, thrusting until he was coming too with a pleased grunt, and his thrusting picked up in pace a bit until it gradually stopped. His kiss wavered only to avoid making some kind of obscene _sound_ in reply, because the vampire suddenly wanted to see if he could deny Gavin vocal reactions too.

* * *

Gavin shook himself awake as he moaned, jerking a little at the feeling of the vampire filling him up. He reached up with a shaking hand to cup the side of the vampire's neck, pulling him down until he was covering his body like a big blanket. He splayed a hand over the bond as he ran his fingers through the vampire's hair, radiating warmth and praise.

_**Good boy.** _

* * *

He leaned in against Gavin's hand like a feral beast being calmed with a gentle touch, making a noise finally that was so quiet he barely heard it himself, but it sounded an awful lot like a whimper. Nines had never, under any circumstances, ever been called _good,_ and certainly never under such possessive circumstances.

He hesitated to pull out just yet, wanting to stay there inside of Gavin, comforted by the intimacy. To Nines it was an awkward self realization to know that he didn’t mind at all what Gavin had said across the bond. He focused for a moment, trying his best to concentrate, not sure if it would even work again as he attempted to send a simple response that he would be hellbent on _denying_ later.

_**Yours.** _

But once it was said--or not said, as it was--it lingered in the space between them where their bond grew stronger by the hour.


	4. soft edges of toxic flowers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please heed the warnings.  
> This chapter includes explicit rape/non-con elements, minor character death, violence, and gore.

Connor had decided that his brother was a complete and total moron who couldn't be trusted to keep his pets alive. It had only been okay so far because Gavin seemed to be quite strong for such a new vampire, but while Nines was called away to update Amanda--who had checked in and wanted to know all about _why_ she felt a sudden flicker of power and exhaustion from her tie to Silas--Connor had made it his project to make sure Gavin was fed.

He remembered being new, feeling the constant need to _feed._ And he remembered Amanda denying him relief until he pledged himself to her.

He wasn’t going to put Gavin through that.

When he opened the door to the room where Gavin was being kept, he was a little relieved to see that his brother had at least thought to give the younger vampire a blanket and some clothing, but almost disappointed that he couldn’t openly ogle Gavin unless he took his clothes off. Connor knew Nines well enough to recognize it was more about keeping anyone else from seeing Gavin than letting Gavin be comfortable, but it still made him pout a bit.

“You should really feed,” he told Gavin, pulling the half-dead hooker he’d grabbed from the streets in after him. The man was delirious from blood loss, stumbling around like a drunk, but had enough awareness to startle at the realization that he was about to be slaughtered, and the panic set in, in his eyes when he jumped at the sound of Connor slamming the door behind them. It left the human vulnerable between two monsters--monsters he hadn’t even known were real an hour before!--who he knew were going to kill him.

“I can show you how if you can’t figure it out,” Connor told Gavin. And his tone was sarcastic, but an affectionate sort of sarcasm. He knew Gavin might not understand that yet, but someday he would.

* * *

Gavin's eyes glowed red as they tracked the vamp and the poor bastard they'd dragged in here, and he sighed. The fire licked across his skin as the scent of blood stained the air, and he shivered, revelling in the heat before he banked the blaze back down. He turned his face slightly away, eyes deadening as he laid down to rest in the warmth.

* * *

“He’s dying no matter what, you might as well make sure it’s not a waste,” Connor assured Gavin, grabbing the human by his throat when that declaration made him try to run at the door anyway in a desperate panic. It was a move that had taken hardly any effort on the vampire’s part, Connor held his neck almost idly while his gaze was fixed and waiting on Gavin.

* * *

Gavin's brow furrowed without his permission, and he tilted his head to meet the vampire's eyes. He considered the vampire for a few moments, before he shook his head, clearing his throat. "C- ", he stuttered, growing more frustrated and alarmed as he tried to speak. "W- _f- "_ he choked.

* * *

“Look, that moral dilemma you’re going through isn’t new,” Connor assured him, soundly almost bored about it. “Feed fast and let him die now, or watch me kill him slowly. Choice is yours.”

* * *

Gavin looked away, but his hand lit up with flame, and he whispered down his bloodbond, finding the one that connected _his_ vampire to the one in front of him. He hovered, gently, and sent something small. He knew there was something... _off,_ about his connection to the threads, it wasn't normal- and he didn't want this vamp to attack him. He took a breath, and gave a feather-light brush to the vampire's bonds.

_**Not without him.** _

* * *

Connor snarled, growling louder than he meant to, teeth gnashing in a way that showed his fangs. It was a feral response his brother would have had more control to hide, but he hadn't expected this new vampire to be so... _strong_ with the bonds.

“Is _that_ fucking how you two managed to practically exchange goddamn vows without saying a fucking word?” Connor snapped.

The hooker tried to escape him again, and Connor lashed out, pulling his victim back over, biting into his neck so hard this time when he pulled back there were arteries and fleshy muscle stuck between his teeth. He dropped the whimpering, shaking man as he slipped into agonal breathing, a constant backdrop of a death rattle the vampire tuned out easily. He looked back at Gavin, eyes brighter than before, licking the blood from his lips as he reached up to pick between two of his teeth. He tossed the flesh caught there aside, flicking it away like it was nothing.

“Well, you made your choice,” Connor pointed out, lips curling into a grin. He knelt down to bite into the dying human again, sucking back some of that blood, keeping it in his mouth this time. Standing, he walked over and forcefully kissed Gavin to share it, a shotgun kiss of gore.

* * *

Gavin growled as the vampire's tongue forced its way into his mouth. He latched onto the nape of the vampire's neck, piercing his claws into the flesh to drag him closer. He groaned lowly, breaking the kiss to sink his teeth into the older vampire's neck. Blood painted the inside of his palm, and he _moaned,_ A new, _different_ wisp of a small bloodbond stirred at the edge of the garden next to his sirebond, both curled delicately around each other at the base before they split off in different directions. He let it be, knowing it would only grow in time.

* * *

Unlike his brother, Connor had no issue with a new vampire drinking from him without permission. He turned his head easily, grinning with his own fangs showing, the blood from before trickling obscenely from the corners of his smirk. And he welcomed the start of that blood bond with one of his own, his vampiric nature translating in a mind palace of control that had allowed him to ignore the more horrific parts of his existence the same way Gavin used his. Connor’s unique skill was adapting to the person attempting to connect with him, using their own emotional methods either for, against, or _with_ them.

Connor was a maze of _angel's trumpets_ and _meadow saffron,_ beauty dripping with poison without antidote. He weaved his inflorescence between Gavin’s thorns and vines with little effort, filling in the gaps with splashes of new color.

* * *

Gavin gasped, flinching as flowers _bloomed_ inside him. He pulled off, whining as he pressed his forehead to the vampire's temple, trying to breathe, icy panic threatening to swallow him whole.

His hands shook even in the garden as he reached out to touch one of the blossoms, and fire leapt out of his hand to protect him as his fingertip traced the shape of a delicate petal. _Nightshade._ The other vampire shivered as he made a small noise, and Gavin flinched away, backing up so that he was far away from the flowering bond.

Clouds darkened the sky, and he turned his face away, choking on his breath and the blood in his mouth. Tears began to fall, and the tremors became painful as they crept through him.

* * *

"Gavin," Connor commented--oh yes, he'd looked through Gavin's things and learned about him, and unlike Nines he wasn't above using that information. His brother insisted on getting the new vampire to willingly _give_ his name, but Connor didn't care that it gave away his snooping. "You haven't eaten enough," he assured him.

He realized that his intrusion in the other vampire’s bond had probably been unwelcome, but Connor couldn’t really bring himself to care. Crawling into the recesses of the troubled mind was something he never tired of, and he wouldn’t apologize for it.

What he _did_ do was creep over toward Gavin. He grabbed the man, forced him to face him with forceful hands against his shoulders that wouldn’t be argued with, then leaned in and licked at the tears on one side of his face. It was an oral fixation that had started in life for Connor, and vampirism had dialed it up to a thousand, inhibitions diminished enough so that he could let himself indulge even if it was considered weird to others.

* * *

Gavin flinched, and he struggled with the hazy bloodlust that washed over him for a moment, digging his claws into the vampire's sides as he heard him softly moan. He growled, pushing him back and flipping them around so he could pin the other vampire to the bed and straddle his hips. The fire was hot, and he shivered, meeting the other vampire's gaze with glowing red eyes. He calmed, and whispered to the beautiful flowers.

_**Do you want this?** _

* * *

There was a wild danger in the warmth of their new bond, but Connor enjoyed it, holding Gavin’s gaze with a smirk on his face before sitting up, arms around the new vampire to keep him there against his lap. Connor leaned forward to almost lazily rest his forehead against the other man’s, and his flowers _bloomed_ in the bond.

“I’m not my brother,” he assured Gavin with a fanged smirk, bringing a hand up to ever so lightly run one of his sharper nails against Gavin’s cheek. It made him bleed there too, a mix of red and tears that Connor tasted this time as he licked again.

“You don’t get to own me,” Connor explained with a chuckle. “But yes, I want this,” he finally added, giving the answer easily where Nines might have tried to avoid it.

* * *

Gavin closed his eyes, sighing as he traced one of the new blooms with burning fingertips. It caught alight, and he whispered to it softly, staring in wonder as the flower smoldered, unburning, small sparks rising as his own fiery floret bloomed amongst the others the other vampire had grown. He pulled back to look the other vampire in the eye, trying not to betray his concern.

* * *

Connor purred outright at the feeling of the heat, burned in places no one else had dare touch, his flowers always too deadly to get close to. But Gavin wasn't actively biting them, and Connor enjoyed the way the hunter toed that line carefully. A tease in so many ways.

The fire was like an electric current through his senses, and where Gavin was concerned about the singed petals, it made Connor hard, his gaze shifted from amused to _hungry_ as he looked back at Gavin.

“Give me more,” the vampire insisted, voice hoarse with _need._ “Let it blaze. I can bloom again for you. Over and over until we’re fucking in the ashes of what we _are.”_

* * *

Gavin shuddered at the words. It was a _confession,_ the _hunger_ for his warmth, and he knew that this vampire was weak for him as well, eager to give himself to Gavin. He thought about the pretty blooms, something he knew the vamp had brought into their bond on purpose.

He grabbed the vampire's thighs to rearrange them so the vampire was sitting in his lap, his legs wrapped around Gavin's waist. He rocked his hips forward, rubbing against the tented fabric of the vampire's slacks.

He cradled the vampire's face again pulling him into a languid kiss as he laid a palm over the bond. Flame seeped from his hand, and more of the blooms began to glow with heat as they caught fire.

_**They really are quite beautiful**_ , he whispered without speaking.

* * *

Connor rubbed down against him in kind, delighted to not be denied. He would have taken anyway had he been, but the hunter doesn't need to know that now. In the heat of the fire of their bond, Connor felt a vague sense of pain, discomfort, and it only made him harder. As Connor returned the kiss--turning it into his own brand of aggressive, all fangs and tongue--he realized, of course, that Nines was never going to forgive him for this, but he'd intended to simply feed the pet. Who knew the pet would feed him too?

* * *

Gavin moaned a little, sucking on the vampire's tongue before he broke the kiss to push the other vampire down onto his back. He rolled his hips, the tops of his thighs pressing up against the other vampire's ass.

Gavin bit his lip as his cunt clenched, folds growing slick as his hands dropped to his bonded's waist. He flicked open the clasp of his belt, sliding it out and dropping it on the floor. He held the other vampire's gaze as he started to undo his slacks.

* * *

Connor was chuckling as he watched. If Nines hadn't let his pet show this dominant side before already, he would have bothered his brother about it until he did, because it was _delightful._

“If you want to be inside, there are ways,” Connor informed him. He had a collection of toys he didn’t mind bringing out for the other vampire. But his own dick was almost impatient in the way Gavin took his time with his pants, Connor shifted a bit to bring his hands down and _help_ get them the fuck out of the way.

* * *

Gavin groaned at the thought, and he shook his head, twisting to help him tug them off, the older vampire grumbling about his shoes. Gavin hushed him with a kiss, pushing the vampire onto his back and the clothing to the floor. He dragged the vampire closer to him, slipping his hands under his bonded's legs to grab his waist, so they were spread wide and his knees were hooked over Gavin's elbows. He rocked his hips forward, moaning when the cockhead brushed against his wet folds.

_**Perhaps next time, if you behave,**_ he whispered to the burning flowers, nipping at the vampire's throat lightly.

* * *

Connor made a displeased noise at that. "I never behave," he warned. And there was a seriousness to the tone now, some of the chaotic amusement he liked to carry himself with temporarily shed to let the darker parts of his personality show. He never behaved anymore because he’d been commanded to for so long. It was a childish effort to never be victimized again into an obedient slave.

He sucked in unneeded breath at the touch of his cock against Gavin though, eyes rolling back a little--Connor was never shy about showing his visible reactions. And he let it show in the bond too, new flowers blooming as they crept along the edges of their predecessors’ ashes, new and toxic life born from the death of what came before.

The vampire’s fangs showed in visible warning when he brought an arm up, pulling at Gavin’s wrist to shove it between them. “If you don’t fucking touch me now you’ll see just how badly I can misbehave,” he threatened. It was partially a challenge, partially open defiance. Either Gavin would, and he’d enjoy the hell out of it as he rocked against his grip, or the former hunter would deny him and he’d get a thrill out of challenging him anyway.

* * *

Gavin stopped as his bonded's tone changed, a cold breeze whistling silently through the garden. He curled his other hand around the one holding his wrist, pulling his hips away a little. He leaned closer and pressed a soft kiss against the older vampire's forehead, hearing a tiny intake of breath. He sighed and warmed their bond, whispering gently to the blossoms as he pressed their foreheads together.

_**Forgive me, lover. You've been good for me. Do you want me to keep going?** _

* * *

It was...not what he'd been asking for. Connor frowned at the treatment, because it was so foreign to him that for a moment he hadn't even caught on yet that the way Gavin treated him now was...

“I _have_ been good to you,” he replied, but where Gavin said it with compassion, Connor spoke the words with disgust. Like he couldn't believe he’d allowed himself to make this mistake.

* * *

Gavin recoiled, and he sighed, climbing off of him and getting out of the bed all together. He handed Connor his underwear and slacks, careful not to touch his skin too much, and backed off, looking down at the bloodied, dying human. He turned away from the bloodbonds, working with slightly trembling hands to build the fire back up. The rain started falling heavily, and he leaned into the warmth, wiping away soft tears and whispering to the flames, knowing his bonded could hear him.

_**If you feed from him, I will acquiesce to feed from you.** _

* * *

He made an angry noise when Gavin pulled away entirely, his cock neglected but still waiting. The new vampire wasn’t going to fuck him unless he could do it gently? Fuck _that._

Connor considered that for a moment, mentally going over the different ways he could torment his brother's pet. Because it was easier to look at him as belonging to Nines. Connor didn't keep things. Or, well, he rarely kept them alive.

But he scoffed at the comment, sitting up on his elbows a bit, but making no move to get dressed. He didn’t care that he was still naked and hard when he asked the other man in a dark, accusing tone, “Is that how you’re going to live with yourself? It’s not the same if _you_ don’t kill them? That method won’t work forever, Gavin.”

* * *

Gavin turned to look at him with a face like stone, eyes dead as he watched the blaze.

_**I can't live with myself. I'm not alive.** _

* * *

Connor looked at him, and then he started laughing, because that was… _fuck._ "Is that what you think?" he taunted the younger vampire. "You don't understand yet, but you fucking _should.”_ As if it might further prove his point, Connor pressed back against the bond with his flora, snuffing the flames out in places with the speed and force of it. "No, Gavin, we're more alive than humans ever will be. Life shouldn't be defined by a beating heart, it should be in the way we connect to the world around us, and no one--fucking absolutely no one--is more connected than a vampire. That limbo between death and life leaves us somewhere in the beautiful middle with the power to straddle that line. You're more alive now than you ever were, more connected. The sooner you accept that, the more powerful you'll be with it."

* * *

Gavin shook his head, backing away so he could sit against the far wall. He closed his eyes as he tried to get comfortable, curling up next to the fire to watch the new blossoms grow. It was hard to see them in the rain.

* * *

Connor growled in frustration, reaching for his pants more out of convenience than anything--on the off chance the human had some fight in him, the last thing he wanted was the fucker kicking him in the dick. He stood up, rolling up his sleeves a bit so that he was easier when he reached down and grabbed the dying hooker. Connor paused though, then decided _fuck it_ and took his shirt off instead, starting with the vest on top of it before working on the button up piece beneath it. He tossed it aside effortlessly and had no shame in revealing the colorful patterns on his arms to Gavin for the first time.

_Let him look and wonder what they mean,_ was the thought that crossed his mind.

As he leaned down to grab the dying human and sink his fangs into the man’s neck again, he let the flowers continue to bloom in their bond, but they took on a decidedly crimson look now. Connor fed, and he was going to force Gavin to feed on him in kind, but he was making it clear through the bond that he wouldn’t do this forever. Gavin would have to kill someday.

And the soft edges of the toxic flowers Connor manifested through their bond with were a silent promise to teach him how when it came to that. Because Connor remembered how it felt to not want to kill, just as vividly as he remembered his own breaking point when giving a damn became a thing of the past and the kill was all he lived for.

* * *

Gavin sighed, shivering as the rain calmed, but continued. He watched the vampire feed for a moment until he choked, turning his back so he wouldn't throw up. The flowers were beautiful, and he turned away from them too, pulling away into his mind so he wouldn't have to listen to the _sounds_ so loudly.

* * *

Death wasn't beautiful. The hooker fell with a wet 'thud' of flesh slapping against the hard floor, and Connor already smelled the rot setting in there. But he looked back at Gavin expectantly now, viscera dripping from the corners of his mouth down his neck, the blood that covered him obscene in its amounts. His pale skin was normally a canvas of the occasional freckle or mole--a trait he didn’t share with Nines, whose skin was generally just porcelain and perfect--but Connor was wearing a shirt of gore now against his naked torso.

* * *

Gavin felt cold, watching the vampire look at him in their bond without opening his eyes. He felt like the hair on the back of his neck was standing up, and he sighed as he started to grow wet again.

* * *

Connor looked at him, and _glared_ when he didn't respond beyond the bond itself. "Look at me," he demanded, pulling some of the bloomed flowers back in their connection.

* * *

Gavin grit his teeth inside his head, snapping some of his flame over to the bond to heat the same spot, this time letting the flower burn _hot_ for a second. He didn't look up.

* * *

He growled, opening his mouth to show his fangs in an obstinate effort to get the former hunter to just _look_ at him. But he didn't linger on it, because he felt that heat creeping in, and he wanted more. Connor was across the room in seconds, Gavin's face in his hands as he leaned down to kiss him aggressively. There was still flesh stuck between his teeth, his tongue saturated with blood, and he shared it forcefully.

* * *

Gavin banked the fire, gently pushing back the panic and bloodlust away as he let his bonded bite at his mouth. If the older vampire wouldn't allow him to be gentle, he would have to teach himself how to grow flowers for him without the fire.

He kissed back, banking the fire as the blood in his mouth made it grow hotter.

* * *

Connor was angry by the retreating flames, chased them with flowers, trying to _dare_ Gavin to make them ash again. But he also clung to the other man, shifted to bring a hand down to one of Gavin’s sides and pulled him in closer. Even with his pants back on, it was clear in the way Connor rubbed against him that he’d never gone soft. He still _wanted._

* * *

Gavin crawled into his bonded's lap to let him rub in between his legs. He lapped at the gore on the older vampire's chin, groaning as he followed the trail down to his throat, grazing his fangs over the skin, blood beading on the surface.

_More concessions, hidden in cruelty,_ he thought.

* * *

He turned them, dropping to the floor so that he could rest his blood stained back against the wall, pulling Gavin down to sit on him. If Connor had realized he was being played, that Gavin was giving in, in so many ways, he might have paused. But presently he was too focused on tilting his head as he gripped Gavin's hair and shoved the younger vampire's face against his own throat.

* * *

Gavin whined a little, licking the skin before he let himself bite. He mouthed at the skin, hiding a kiss as his fangs sunk into flesh and he began to feed, moaning a little at the taste.

* * *

He felt as it pulled on his veins, his body resisted only because the new vampire was finally drinking deeply enough he could literally feel the cells drag within his veins as they left. It was a new kind of burn that Connor embraced, the hand in Gavin's hair gripped harder. He brought his other arm around, placed it against the former hunter's spine in an _almost_ gentle gesture of keeping him close. And Connor laughed quietly, closed his eyes as he rested his head back against the wall, relief flooded through him. Because the pet was finally feeding. He'd be okay now.

* * *

Gavin whispered to the flowers, glancing up at the sky as the light returned. He felt his hunger finally begin to fall away, truly dulled for the first time since he had first awoken as a fledgling. He could taste his bonded's relief in the air in between them, and he suckled gently, humming against his throat. He didn't understand why the vampire had pushed his gentle hands away, when he clearly craved the soft touch. _In time,_ he reminded himself.

* * *

Connor growled at the pull of it, his grip on Gavin's hair loosened a bit while he almost lazily opened his eyes to look at him. The color, the shade of red there in his irises, it had shifted to something softer, much closer to matching the shade of the flowers he let thrive in their bond again as he looked at Gavin.

* * *

His own eyes sparked with a low-burning fire. He took his bonded's mouth in a kiss, curling closer so that he could rock against him a little, groaning as the tented fabric touched him.

* * *

He wanted to resist at first, because there was that stupid _gentleness_ again, but he could feel Gavin as he pressed down against him too. The vampire brought his fangs into it quickly enough, fangs caught on Gavin's bottom lip as he pulled his tongue back just enough to whisper against the man's mouth, "I can _smell_ how turned on you are. Did you realize we could do that? Scent is huge for us. You're new, but I can teach you."

* * *

Gavin kissed him again instead of answering, moaning as his bonded's fangs broke through the skin. He knew the older vampire would yield for him, and he leaned backwards, pulling his lover on top of him.

If his bonded was going to reject sharing kindness with him unless they both hid it inside brutality, then he would adapt. He would learn everything his bonded had the patience to teach him, and one day he would be _free._

_**Later,**_ he whispered, voiceless, surrendering this battle so that he might eventually win the war.

* * *

Connor heard a promise in that word, and he took it to undead heart. He'd make sure that Gavin was good on his word later. For now he leaned down against him, like a snake on slippery ground, nipping along Gavin's jawline to taste the stubble there.

He brought his hand up, palm rested against Gavin’s throat, thumb tracing where a pulse point would be found if he were still alive, and not for the first time, Connor envied the fact that Nines had been the one to kill him. Connor hadn’t turned anyone in ages, and rarely to good results. He was jealous that Gavin had turned out so perfect for it.

* * *

Gavin hummed as he leaned into the hand, tilting his head back to allow his bonded to touch. He wrapped his legs around the other vampire's waist, moaning a little as the grip on his neck tightened.

The tenderness he craved from his lover was buried in the warmth of his hands, and he felt a smile pull at his mouth.

* * *

Connor reached down, gripping Gavin's thigh hard, purposely where he thought Nines had probably bitten him that first night he'd woken up--because Connor had demanded details, and while he was still sure Nines hadn't given _everything_ away after finally relenting, he had told him about the femoral feeding.

He was still covered in gore himself as he pulled away from the throat grip and reached with that hand to try to get Gavin’s shirt out of the way. It meant he had to lift his head away, that he had to pause in the way he’d been kissing at the other vampire’s jawline still, but it was a small price to pay if it meant he could see Gavin’s skin there along his chest and shoulders. More areas to bite.

* * *

Gavin shivered at the pinch, hips jerking a little as his cunt clenched. He undid the buttons to let his bonded push the shirt off his shoulders, biting his lip. He tried to squash the frail hope that bubbled in the fire that he would be allowed to keep it.

* * *

He was too fixed on how beautiful the younger vampire was beneath him to even consider it as he tossed the shirt aside at the bed nearby. Connor looked down at him with a new kind of lust, gaze fixed on Gavin's as he shifted back a bit where the other man's legs were hooked around him to make enough room to bring his dick up. It let him rub with the base of his shaft against where he felt how wet Gavin was, eyes rolling back a bit in outward show of how much he enjoyed it. Nines tried to hide his reactions, but Connor was all about the shared experience. He wouldn't apologize, would never ask for permission, but he would let his lover know he was enjoying it this way.

* * *

Gavin jolted, whining as the cock pressed up against his slick folds. He _burned_ with bloodlust, and he held the fire in his hands, teaching himself how to endure the wild heat. He looked up at his bonded, reaching up to drag him down into a sharp kiss. He bit at his chin and jaw, whining as he began to roll his hips a little to meet the slow thrusts.

* * *

Connor growled and moved his hips back to actually slam up into Gavin, enjoying the way the younger vampire was _finally_ being rough with him. Across their bond he let the flowers bloom again, filled the area between them so much some of them ended up singed, but Connor replaced them with new petals almost as quickly as they burned.

After a moment, he had one hand beneath them on the small of Gavin’s back, and the other up against his throat. Connor pulled back from the kiss aggressively so that he could shift the angle as he fucked into him. He made sure to keep his eyes focused on Gavin’s face when he started to squeeze the younger vampire’s throat with his hand too, wanting to see the reaction there.

* * *

Gavin's mouth opened with a silent scream when the cock forced its way inside him, and he spasmed as he made himself relax into the lust and pain, feeling drunk. More flowers burst into their bond, making his head spin, and he gasped as his lover began to choke him. He grabbed the other vampire's wrist, moaning lowly and shutting his eyes as his cunt quivered and clenched.

* * *

He hadn’t expected as much resistance from the younger vampire’s body, but he never paused either. The way Gavin held his wrist was sublime. And when he saw the man beneath him close his eyes, Connor finally smiled—not a smirk, a genuinely fond, fanged smile as he tilted his head to watch. It was fleeting though, Connor losing himself in the pleasure already building in the base of his own spine as he thrust harder and squeezed.

* * *

Gavin choked, thrashing in the crushing grip as his bonded fucked him at a brutal pace. His eyes flew open, wild as he bit into his lover's wrist, whimpering as the blood in his mouth tipped him over the edge. He began to cry as the tremors came, clenching around the other vampire tightly as his orgasm hit.

* * *

He felt it through their bond just as vividly as he felt it against his cock buried inside of Gavin, and Connor almost looked confused by it, because he'd never experienced a blood bond so strong. At least not one where the younger vampire in the equation had the most power. He'd guessed Gavin was strong, but this was something else entirely. Something with _potential._

Gavin was a beautiful puzzle he wanted to pick apart and study piece by fucking delicious piece. The darker part of his personality wondered if he could find a way to literally dissect him now without actually killing him, but luckily the more dominant part of his being was content to learn what made him tick emotionally instead.

He came at that thought, shaking a bit, choking Gavin tighter than he meant too as he pumped into him. Connor was gasping for breath he didn’t need, closing his eyes for a moment because he was almost dizzy from it too. Gradually he came to a stop, pulled out almost immediately, but used the hand on Gavin’s back to lower him to the floor softly. Connor was still trembling slightly when he released his grip on Gavin’s neck. He kept his hand there, but his palm rested lazily against that soft skin now instead of possessively squeezing. And he opened his eyes slowly, still taking deep, unnecessary breaths.

* * *

Gavin _ached_ as the bond almost started to _sing,_ and the flames were so blindingly bright for a moment that he had to look away. The voltaic connection wrapped around him like a fist, throttled him harder than the hand around his throat, and he began to unravel again as another orgasm consumed him. It _hurt,_ and he cried harder as he realized he wanted it to hurt like this again.

Gavin's eyes rolled back as his bonded trembled through his climax, and he went blind for a moment, sightless and staring at charred flowers. Their bloodbond was _strong,_ and frightening, and the firelight reflected in the blossoms hurt his eyes.

He whimpered as the other vampire pulled out, feeling his swollen hole begin to leak cum onto the floor. He shivered, clinging to his lover, trying to breathe as _fear_ bared its teeth and threatened to swallow him.

* * *

Connor had to actively resist the urge to lean down and lick at the mess he'd made, because as fun as it would have been to bury his face between those legs and make Gavin cry some more, he was still very much shaking himself. Eventually he moved his hand back up, fingertips tracing along the stubble on Gavin's face, and his hand fluttered as much as the rest of him, slender fingers almost unsure as he came down from the high of it all.

“I can hurt you any time you want,” he promised quietly, as the fanged smirk returned to his face.

* * *

Gavin shivered, a broken keen scraping lowly in his throat as he turned his face to chase the soft touch to his jaw. The needy urge seized him to beg his lover to hold him, or bloody him with teeth, or fuck him until he went limp and couldn't cry anymore, _anything_ to keep the hands on him for just a little longer. He choked until he started to struggle, breathless and staring with wide, amaurotic eyes, and he collapsed in front of the fire.

Sobs shredded his throat, and he gagged as blood filled his mouth, unable to stop himself from biting his tongue.

* * *

Connor leaned down to kiss him, his own tongue pressed in to take what he could. He wanted Gavin to choke, but only if he was doing the choking. The vampire growled at the taste of Gavin's blood, hungry for it.

And he sent more flowers across their bond, petals gentle as they crept along the thorns this time. Connor would never admit it aloud, but he suddenly wanted to soothe Gavin’s panic.

* * *

Gavin gasped as his lover licked into his mouth, and he whimpered as a small _warmth_ that wasn't his own flowed into the garden. He held his breath as he nipped the other's lips, catching beaded blood drops to taste, pushing away his soft surprise at how easy it was to forget to breathe again.

Gavin broke the kiss, pushing his bonded to lie on his side so he could roll in his grip, pressing his back flush against his lover's chest, grasping the other vampire's hand to guide the fingers to wrap around his throat.

He curled a hand into fire, eyes glowing bright with a wild and exhilarating _fear_ and a _hunger_ as some of the blooms began to burst into small whitehot flame, his blazing hands glowing different hues as the cloying toxins began to boil.

He would learn to let his heart bite instead of beat, if it meant that he could keep this.

* * *

Connor leaned into it, but where Gavin tried to make their position almost gentle, he pulled him in possessively against him with that grip on his throat. If breathing had still been a requirement for Gavin, it probably would have choked him. And he brought out his claws--Connor didn't use them a lot anymore--letting them dig into Gavin's skin until he smelled his blood scent in the air. Then, and only then, did Connor relax enough to eventually drift into an almost sleeplike state.

It was cruel of him to remain there holding Gavin when some time later he heard the familiar cadence of Nines’ footfalls in the hallway nearby as his brother approached the room. But Connor had a smirk on his face even as his eyes remained closed, eagerly awaiting the chaos that was about to follow the moment Nines opened the door and found them.


	5. rest your head here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please heed the warnings.  
> This chapter includes the following implied/referenced elements: rape/non-con, character death, and suicide.

He'd been careful to clean himself up after feeding. Nines wanted to be a perfect example of immaculate presence when he walked into the room to see Gavin again. But before even walking in he paused outside of it, his hand hovering over the handle.

Because he thought he could smell… _Connor._

The vampire’s lips curled into an angry snarl, fangs shown as he slammed the door open with enough force the hinges were damaged and it hung at an awkward angle. Nothing prepared him for the sight that greeted him there--his oldest brother fucking _spooning_ with _his_ pet. He glared at them both with a blinded fury.

“Now, I know what you’re going to say--” Connor started, a fucking _grin_ on his face that only enraged him more. Nines was on him, grabbing his older brother by _his_ throat to slam him against a nearby wall hard enough the bricks cracked and dust from it fell on Connor’s shoulders.

* * *

Gavin got to his feet, taking a breath as he pulled himself to his center in an instant. The fire was calm, and _searingly_ hot as it licked over his skin. The stinging hunger was finally sated, and he was lucid enough to become aware of several things at once: the _power_ thrumming through his body with his lover's blood, hypervigilant senses tracking more information about the room, and the taste of the emotions of his two bonded lovers in the air. His own threads that were sewn into each of the other vampires, connecting to his own at one edge of the garden. How _easy_ it was to harness the flame.

He moved quickly, snatching the bloodstained shirt as he circled the bed, red eyes slitted as he watched the two vampires. His pupils flashed with twin white light as he ran out of the doorway, disappearing down the hallway as he tracked the scent of an exit. He could smell the path outside that his sire had walked to discover them together in the room Gavin was reborn in.

_Don't fucking look back,_ he commanded himself.

* * *

Connor's own eyes widened a bit when he caught sight of Gavin's shifting eye color, but Nines didn't give him a chance to voice any concerns as he tightened his grip and slammed him against the wall again, harder this time. He felt something tear in the back of his skull--vampirism would heal it later, but it hurt him now, and instead of wincing or flinching, Connor just _laughed._

Somewhere a few hallways away, Silas had been listening, standing in the hallway with a look of _concern._ He heard Markus' soft voice behind him, words meant to comfort, reminding him that interfering could end badly for him as it had in the past. Silas ignored it, stepping out into a hallway he knew Gavin would have to cross before he escaped the basement.

His expression softened at the sight of Gavin's distress when he finally did reach him, and Silas was shrugging off his robe immediately. He wore it on the colder nights, wanting to pretend to still be human in some way with the fake warmth of it. It was a simple, black robe, and underneath it he wore even more simple pajamas--Silas liked his comfort, he didn’t force fierce aesthetics the way his brothers did--but he gave it up freely, holding his hands out to offer it to Gavin.

“It’s okay,” Silas told him quietly.

* * *

Gavin froze, gasping as he met the new vampire's eye, and he stumbled as he felt the fragile thread of a bond, hidden on the other side of the garden. A path led to a glass greenhouse that faced the fire, nestled in a clearing in the trees, a refuge built by this vampire that Gavin could breathe easy in. He trembled as he traced a warm fingertip over the ghostly bond, recalling the _pull_ of this vampire's voice as it had called him back after death, marking Gavin a revenant as he had given him new life.

His hands shook with fear as he listened to his own immediate instincts about the older vampire, the feeling of _safety_ he could feel through the eidolic greenhouse. He came close enough to take the robe, panting and pressing himself into a corner as he paused in his desperate flight to find a way _out._ Besides, it was likely this vampire wouldn't have allowed him to leave now that he had been seen _anyway,_ safe feeling and havenbond be damned.

* * *

Silas frowned as he watched him, gentle hands moving to help secure the robe a bit better around him. "Come with me?" he asked, offering Gavin his hand. It was important to ask, he wouldn't demand anything from Gavin like his brothers did.

* * *

Gavin's eyes were wild as he looked back the way he had come, half expecting to see his other bound vampires coming to collect him, and drag him back into that room. He flinched away from the outstretched hand, and he curled his arms around his own torso, nodding at the vampire to lead so he could follow.

* * *

He tried not to react to the rejection--there was no logical reason for the new vampire to realize what he'd really been offered or how much it meant quite yet--but when he offered Gavin a weak smile it didn't quite reach his eyes this time. Instead of commenting on it, Silas pulled his hand back and turned to lead the way, taking him into the library nearby. There was the distant crash of the sound of his brothers fighting as they walked farther away from them, but Silas hardly flinched at it.

Once they’d left the hallway and made their way up a flight of stairs to the room, Silas was quiet for a moment, giving Gavin time to look around at the room. He moved over towards a chair near the window, glanced casually towards the rain outside to see how hard it was falling. When he looked back toward the younger vampire there was a sadness in his gaze, eyes flickering towards the ghost behind him before focusing on Gavin himself.

“I thought you might like this room. The older looking books are mostly Connor’s journals, but you’re welcome to read them. He doesn’t mind.” Silas had learned a long time ago that if Connor kept a secret, it was better kept. “They won’t be coming upstairs for a while,” he added.

* * *

Gavin's eyes were wide as they tracked the room, some piece of him looking for exits as he followed the vampire over towards the window. A large armchair was nearby, and he hesitantly sat in the corner of the bay window seat furthest away from it.

He trembled as he pulled up his knees to wrap himself into a little ball, face damp as silent tears tracked down his face. He was confused by the radiating _sanctuary_ that flowed from this vampire into their bond, his lover's _twin_ offering him shelter as he fled from the wrath of his sire.

He looked at the sheer walls of the greenhouse and took a deep breath, shutting his eyes for a moment as he began with something small, feeding flame with a soft murmur.

_**Why?** _

* * *

Silas turned and looked at him, perhaps noticing the landscape of their bond for the first time. He focused the best he could--he wasn't as good at it as Connor--to make sure the glass was clearer for Gavin. "Because you deserve it," he replied aloud.

* * *

Gavin's voice escaped him in a tiny sob of _relief,_ a small, burning certainty lighting him up that this vampire would not harm him. He backed up until he could press his back against the wall on one side, panting as he tried to control his adrenaline, and the way the fire seared _hot_ at the words. The sobs were louder now, painful as he began to choke on them and tremble.

_**I deserve torture. I deserve that, to be back there, in that room, with them, I don't- you don't know what I deserve.** _

* * *

Silas looked at him, brow furrowed with empathy. There was the uncharacteristic urge to walk over and actually hug him, but he refrained. The robe he'd shared would have to be comfort enough for now. "I hope you realize how wrong that is sooner rather than later, Gavin Reed," Silas told him quietly.

He made his way over to close the library door when the crashing sounds of his brothers became noticeable again. “But until you do, just know that I won’t demand from you what they do. Ever. You can rest here.” There was even a couch in the back corner if the young vampire was so inclined, but Silas wasn’t going to tell him what method to use to rest.

* * *

Glowing eyes pulsed in a savage beat, wide as sharp teeth cut his _name_ into the air and it fell from the vampire's mouth. As Gavin's kindred turned to leave, a vicious panic hijacked him, and he lurched forward, outstretched fingers grasping empty air as his knees buckled and hit the floor. Tremors bit into him like a whip as he cried, head sagging low in shame and disgust as he wilted, debauched, pathetic, and falling apart at the other's feet.

He garroted the fear with flame, weeping as numbed lips remembered how to speak, voice raw as it cracked the choke that collared him and it crumbled away into dust.

_”Stay,”_ he begged.

* * *

Silas considered him, wondering if he should go over and help the poor man stand again, but he kept back to give him space instead. And his expression softened at the sound of that weary voice. "I'm not going anywhere," he assured Gavin quietly.

* * *

He retreated until his back hit a wall, squeezing his eyes shut as he worked to scrape himself back together and cast off the fear trying to rule him. He stepped inside the greenhouse, a shuddering breath escaping him as the clear glass grew warm with the flames that dogged his feet, flickering brightly to follow him. It was peaceful, a clear bubbling stream feeding a calm reservoir.

There were two beautiful fish swimming in lazy circles in the middle of a pond, one a deep black with dark red and brown stripes, the gilded fins and tail shining in the light. The other was a soft white, painted with swirling red and black and inkblotted with a shining silver. He sighed as he started to relax, watching the fish as he looked up at his kindred, ragged breaths easing as he studied the other vampire. He hesitated, hands curling into fists as the longing to reach out and ask to be held dragging over him. He bared his teeth, curling his fingers into the fire to focus.

"N-Names?" He rasped quietly.

* * *

Silas offered him a soft smile, nodding towards the couch nearby, trying to get Gavin to lay down. It was a good sign that the former hunter was speaking, even if he clearly found it difficult, and in their bond Silas attempted to keep things calm and cool around them, glancing at the fish.

“Connor,” he replied, pointing to the first, before glancing at the other one that didn’t move quite as much, but swam with focus when it did. “Richard. But...call him Nines. He doesn’t like his human name anymore.” That wasn’t true, Nines enjoyed it under specific circumstances, but only coming from the right person.

He smiled a bit more, even if it was still sad, as he looked at Gavin. “I’m Silas.”

* * *

Gavin nodded, frowning as he tried to fit the names to the three vampires he found himself bound to, tracking the swirl of the water as he watched Silas with a calculating gaze. He squinted into the water, making a soft noise as he saw the ghostly shape of another fish. His kindred was gifted with third eye, haunted by a shade.

_"W-want out,"_ he whispered.

* * *

Silas's smile faded at that, and he frowned instead, looking back at the fish. "I know you do," he assured Gavin. "It's not within my power. I'm sorry." He didn't get to call a lot of the shots in their family. He didn't trust himself to manage it if he tried.

* * *

His eyes pricked with a spark of white light as his gaze swept the room again, and he sighed, flopping down onto the couch to stare at the ceiling.

_”Sire,”_ he hissed under his breath.

* * *

Silas nodded, taking a seat on the couch opposite of him. "He's very controlling when he wants to be," he agreed. And he ignored the way Markus, from where he stood nearby, pointed out that was _bullshit_ he didn't need to put up with. It was a tired argument Markus had tried to make before. "I can't fault him in it. He doesn't get to keep a lot of things, let alone things he genuinely cares for."

* * *

Gavin's eyes burned red, and he growled, fangs growing sharp as he shook his head. The greenhouse grew _hot,_ and he doused the blaze, gently tracing the delicate twist of his havenbond.

He let flame hover over his _kindred’s_ sirebond, seeing flashes of a trellis choked with thorns. He was very careful not to touch it.

_**Not mine,**_ he whispered to the fire.

* * *

"No, that's..." Silas didn't quite look at the dead man beside him, but his head turned towards him a little anyway. He looked back at Gavin when he realized it. "He won't hurt you."

* * *

He rolled his eyes at the avoidance, glancing at the ghostly image of the shade that caught his kindred's attention. He brushed against the havenbond, stilling as he realized the spirit was _beloved._

* * *

"It's simply better if you don't ask," Silas assured him. Talking both about Markus and the sire Gavin was questioning him about now.

* * *

Gavin let his eyes fall shut, breath hitching as he curled up, covering as much of himself under the robe as he could. He sighed, blinking up at the other vampire before he carefully rolled to the side, lying just shy of laying his head in his kindred's lap. He tried not to let the top of his head touch the vampire's thigh, sighing as he settled his temple to the middle of the small couch and curling up on his side.

_**Nor will I demand it,**_ he whispered to the havenbond, relaxing where he could admire the fish as they caught the light.

* * *

Silas watched him with kind eyes, his expression one of regret. "You don't want to know," he assured Gavin. He looked at the younger vampire for a moment before hesitantly ignoring his own discomfort to shift over and let Gavin rest his head against his thigh.

He was no stranger to being the source of relief after intense happenings.

“Richard enjoys this comfort too,” he confessed quietly, wondering how betrayed his brother would be if he ever learned he’d revealed to Gavin that Nines enjoyed resting his head in the quiet. “Connor doesn’t...he rarely sits still long enough to be soothing.” They were complicated, but they were still brothers.

He glanced up at the sound of his brothers crashing against a wall again downstairs. “I’m sorry you’re caught up in all of this, for what it’s worth.”

* * *

He tensed, forcing himself to relax as his kindred came closer. He shut his eyes at the reminders of those he was bound to, clinging to Silas' voice to distract himself.

_**I will not demand from you what they did to me,**_ he whispered, voiceless as he tried to stop the cracks that threatened to destroy his composure. _**You are safe from me.**_

* * *

Silas looked at him, and he sucked in a breath he didn't need, but he finally reached over to touch Gavin, a gentle hand against the back of his neck. "It's okay," he assured Gavin. “Rest your head here.”

Through the bond, he let the air within the greenhouse walls cool, a soft mist of water gracing the surfaces of everything there. The fish in the pond seemed as calmed by it as Silas intended to make Gavin, not stilling in the water, but moving more gently.

Silas could hear the crash of his brothers fighting downstairs stop. They were talking now. He didn’t listen in.

* * *

Gavin shuddered, relaxing as Silas' hand drifted back and forth over the nape of his neck. His eyes felt heavy, peace drifting through the havenbond to let him truly _soften,_ for the first time, going boneless and letting himself be vulnerable near his kindred.

_"Thank y-you,"_ he whispered.

* * *

"Please don't thank me for this," Silas whispered. "You should never have to thank someone for kindness. I'm sorry you're in a world where that hasn't been the case."

* * *

Gavin gently rolled until he was on his back, and he let his eyes fall shut, bathing in the light of the firey wisps, reflecting off of the misty pool.

_**Sometimes,**_ he spoke, gently voiceless over the water, _**including now this havenbond.**_

* * *

Silas' opened his mouth in surprise at that name. He didn't deserve it, he didn't think. If he truly was what Gavin thought, he'd find a way to free him, but maybe... "Amanda, is--”

Nines slammed the library door open. There was a gash on his lip and one mirroring it on his brow that was still slowly healing--Connor could amplify their powers, but he could weaken them too, and he was very clearly making sure Nines didn’t heal right away. It was a petty thing, Connor’s way of reminding his brother that he didn’t like anyone else hurting him, but he could himself.

His silver eyes looked over the entire scene, the sight of Gavin looking so peaceful with his head rested on Silas’s lap. **”Get up,”** he snapped sharply.

* * *

Gavin's eyes burned brightly, and he rolled to stand in front of his sire, _Richard._ He growled, stance aggressive as his bonded stepped into the room, and he put himself in between the two vampires, wary of the sparking wrath he could taste in the air.

He stalked closer, growl dying in his throat as the scent of his sire's blood washed over him, and he found a searing, wild _calm_ in an instant, his pupils wide and dark, smoldering with the blaze inside him. He softened, making a small noise as he reached with shaking hands to touch the vampire's bloody brow. He pressed a kiss against the corner of his mouth, trying to speak apologies into being as he filled their bond with a small warmth, blood seeping into his mouth.

* * *

Nines stood, a cold, stiff presentation of angry bitterness when he saw his pet move between them to be protective of Silas, but he practically _melted_ when Gavin approached him. He would have liked to think he didn't lean into Gavin's touch to the cut on his forehead, but he did, and they both knew it.

But when Gavin kissed him, that gentle flutter of lips against torn skin, he definitely turned into it to kiss him fully instead for a moment. When Nines broke away, he glanced over to look at Silas, greeted with a look that said his brother wanted to ask what had happened with Connor.

“Don’t,” Nines warned Silas, and his brother let it go with a sigh.

He looked back at Gavin. “I won’t be able to fix your door for a while. You’ll stay in _my_ room now.”

* * *

Gavin shuddered, pressing close to his sire as the vampire's arm curled around his waist, heat licking a line over his skin where they touched. He felt the ice in his throat, whimpering as he took a deep breath.

* * *

"Come on," the vampire snarled, trying to regain some semblance of control, shifting his arm around to take hold of Gavin’s hand. He pulled him away from the library and down the hallway towards his room, trying to keep the image of outrage.

“You don’t belong to Connor,” Nines snapped after a while. Trying to make that absolutely fucking clear. “You belong to me.” Never mind that he’d declared he belonged to Gavin himself, what his pet had done with Connor was unforgivable to him. A hypocrisy only increased by vampiric emotional heightening.

A point he tried to drive home as he shoved Gavin into his room. Nine’s room was minimalist in design, a color pallet of black, white, and silver with a large bed near the back wall. The only outlandish element in it was the indoor waterfall art piece placed in the center of the room, a glass sculpture that resembled ice as cold water quietly ran across its surfaces that extended from the floor to the ceiling. He’d stolen it from an artist he’d slaughtered once, and aside from Gavin it was his most prized possession. The tranquil sound of water falling over icy glass was sometimes the only thing able to lull Nines to sleep.

* * *

He gasped as soon as his sire ripped him away, stumbling as he tried to keep up with the other vampire's aggressive pace. He tripped as they finally stopped moving, crawling away to press his back against the low bedframe. He looked up at his lover with a weary gaze, breath fast as he took in the room with wide eyes. Gavin tried to speak, pressing a shaking hand to his throat when he choked on his words.

* * *

Nines stared at him, tilting his head as he tried to understand the man. Was he trying to speak, or asking to be choked? But he closed the door behind them--locking it this time, because _fuck_ Connor--and turned to face Gavin again, and his expression softened. "I just need to know why?" the vampire asked him. "Did he force you into it?"

* * *

He growled, banking the fire and taking a deep breath as sparks danced from his fingertips. His eyes burned as he sat up and pinned his sire with a deadly look.

_**That's awfully rich, coming from you,**_ Gavin spat, voiceless cold, looking away as he tried to relax in the blazing heat. _**He was trying to help me. I am no more or less than what you made me, Beloved. That cannot change.**_

* * *

He listened and something inside of him broke at the words turned back on him. Nines went quiet, and for the briefest of moments his red eyes shifted to a soft blue, the color they'd been when he was alive. He reached out with a cold hand to touch Gavin's face, a bit of ice there in his touch, a flicker of his power to try to cool the heat.

* * *

Gavin sighed, turning his head to chase the frigid stroke, reaching up to press the numb fingers firmly against his heated skin. It felt like a balm, and a calming chill seeped into the garden, easing through the heavy, muggy air.

He didn't look at him, using the brisk air to bank the flames and trying not to roll his eyes as the borrowed ice tamed the flames _easily._ He shifted closer.

_**I was starving.** _

* * *

Ice crept along Gavin's skin where he touched him, and the vampire kept his silver gaze down on Gavin as he leaned down to kiss him almost gently. Not an apology for turning him, or for capturing him to begin with--he didn't regret that yet--but a promise to never let him starve again.

* * *

Gavin hummed, kissing him softly and as he cooled down, shivering as the chill set deep into his bones. He pushed his sire down onto the bed, pinning him on his back as he crawled on top of him, mantling over him in an instinctively protective stance. Relaxation came haltingly, and he slowly adopted a less severe threat-display as he calmed, tucking his face into his lover's throat. He bit down gently, making a small _relieved_ noise as he tasted Richard's blood.

* * *

He wasn’t sure how to react at first, because as his pet shoved him back Nines was almost startled to realize he _enjoyed_ the display of brief domination in their dynamic. He hadn’t expected that at all, and it showed in the surprised expression on his face that quickly melted to one of comforted safety when he felt Gavin’s fangs in his neck.

Nines turned his head to expose his throat more, bringing a hand up to gently thread his fingers through the younger vampire’s hair to keep him close. It meant Gavin was pressed harder against wounds on his chest—cuts and bruises Connor had caused and now was forcing to heal slower. But Nines didn’t mind the sting at all, just wanted his lover against him.

* * *

Gavin lapped gently at the torn skin, suckling gently as he worshipped his lover's throat with his teeth and tongue, and he pulled back with a sharp whine as the fingertips pressed against Richard's skin became wet with the blood that wept through the vampire's shirt.

He sat up, looking his sire in the eye and making a soft, inquisitive keen as he traced the curve of his lover's cheekbone with his thumb.

* * *

"I don't understand," Nines confessed quietly, looking up at him. "I don't deserve any kindness." He'd been absolutely _horrible_ to Gavin, but the other man seemed to almost want to care for him now.

* * *

Gavin sighed, sitting back into a relaxed position and groaning a little as he licked the blood from his hand. He looked down, hiding his expression from his Sire as he murmured with no sound.

_**You hurt me. You broke something in me, and you made me this way, to become like you. You held the first seed of this soulbond, planted in the earth of the grave you dug into my heart when you fitted the chambers with hungry teeth, and stole my life. Stole my first blood. Stole my chance of having my haven and sirebonds to be one and the same, if I am also to live this way.**_ He turned, slowly, to meet Richard's eye.

_**You have splintered me into pieces digging that grave, and now you must lie in the bed you've made from my body and blood. Let me be kind to you, or let me walk into the sun.** _

* * *

Nines' vision blurred a bit as he listened to the words. It was a lot to take in. The pain Gavin had felt--was feeling--because of what Nines had taken from him. The declaration of what _had_ been taken.

And the analogy that he’d dug his own grave.

Not for the first time, he marveled at just how clever this new vampire was, and almost felt a flicker of guilt for taking his life from him.

Nines raised an arm, a gentle hand pressed against Gavin’s face. His knuckles were still cracked, bloody, and bruised from temporarily destroying Connor’s face, but his touch towards Gavin was soft. “Do you...want your freedom?” he asked quietly, bottom lip trembling a bit as he spoke the words, asked the question he dreaded the answer to. But he wanted honesty in reply.

“Take care of me today,” Nines agreed in a whisper. “And I’ll unlock all doors for you tomorrow.” He recognized that the harm was done, Gavin was broken, but perhaps his freedom--even after the fact--was something Nines could give him that might in some very small way show the regret he was starting to feel.

* * *

He opened his mouth, cheeks growing hot as the shapes of the words he wanted to say incised his jaw like a scalpel, and he gagged on the blood siphoning into the sharp maw. He began to cry, wilting to cling to his lover as his scalding hands shook, the dangerous, burning strength reduced to ash. A suffocating weariness clouded the sky in the garden, sheathing his lover's arms to cradle him and keep the biting frost away like a familiar jacket. Grief led him by the hand, and he followed blindly, sobs rattling through him like ragged breath as he tried to pour his answer into the bloodbond instead, and he took Richard's mouth in a desperate kiss.

* * *

He leaned up into it, ignoring the ache as it pulled open a scabbed cut along his ribs. Because if Gavin was leaving him tomorrow, and this was all he’d have, Nines wanted to feel _everything._

How had he gotten so attached to this pet? How had Gavin broken through the waves of his viciousness and made him want to feel alive again? Nines pretended it was heightened vampire emotions, that preternatural ability to _feel_ and _fall_ so much quicker than mortals, but what if it was more than that? What if he’d just given the only man worth his time an out he knew he both deserved and would take?

What if this was goodbye, and he’d be alone again? Forever.

* * *

The frore felt like death underneath him, and he started to panic, pressing shaking fingertips to Richard's chest and the frigid bond alike. The raw thread that connected them was sluggish and numb, and all at once it was too much to handle, and his lover's pain blinded him.

His hands became slippery with the blood weeping from Richard's body, and he cried out in silent terror when he brushed their bond and his feverish skin cracked the ice. His fingers were wet with water and blood; steam rose into choking fog as he flinched away, but it was too late, and his hostage tongue couldn't even cry havoc as the ice began to melt and mist engulfed him.

Any balm the cold had granted him was gone, become bane, and fear clawed into his brain as he began to drown.

* * *

He felt the ice in their bond splinter and pulled it back, until he realized all at once...Gavin _wanted_ his cold? At least for here and now, he wanted it. Despite everything he’d put the man through, Gavin still _wanted_ him, worried about him, maybe even _craved_ him.

Nines had never felt truly wanted before, not like this, and he didn't think he deserved it but he longed for it anyway.

The vampire let his cold out in soft swirls of ice crystals that started at his chest--frosting over the wounds Connor was putting so much effort into making bleed--and spreading up gently through their bond and reality, a break in the permafrost of Nines’ usually protective defense mechanisms. He’d turned this man, and in turn he’d let Gavin claim him, but he’d never really let him _in._

In reality it made his eyes turn a deep, glacial blue again, vampirism temporarily clouded by the elegant ice on his skin, his hair even shifting to almost silver in the process. If Amanda hadn’t insisted he bury the ability, use it only for torture instead of being _soft_ as he was now, it was the appearance he might naturally have in his undead state. It took him a constant effort to keep up the lie of being a complete predator.

It would make or break their bond depending on how Gavin reacted to frozen patterns running over his thorns and vines. This was Nines at his core, cold but beautiful and soft against the things he loved.

* * *

Gavin's lungs _ached_ as the vapor dissipated, and he blinked, tears falling from whiteout blind eyes, the red choked away by a soft white glow. He stared in awe as the delicate icicles grew, reflecting the heartbeat of the wisp of flame adorning his fingers. The frozen points looked like stars, and the fire he held was unburning, cool to the touch against his warm skin.

He shuddered as it began to snow, steam rising into the frigid air outside the bubble of warmth he found himself in. The ice at the base of their bloodbond tree melted and froze over in a slow pulse, mist blanketing a hot spring. A creeping frost fed the bubbling well, water warmed by his flame flowing in a calm trickle.

He watched Richard take off his mask, and Gavin wept, because underneath his sire was gentle, and yielding, and _beautiful._

* * *

Nines brought a hand up, tracing away the tears there with the same softness he spread ice crystals through their bond. And he said something he never thought he would, whispering the words in a quiet tone that revealed he meant it. "I'm sorry. I became what she made me, and you suffered for it."

* * *

Gavin sighed, curling around his sire and wrapping him in his arms, the embrace warm. He kissed the older vampire's throat, relief clogging his windpipe and dropping him into a hazy, vulnerable headspace. The fear drained out of him like he was being bloodlet, body turning soft under Richard's hand.

_**I forgive you, Beloved.** _

* * *

Not for the first time, there was the urge to reject this kindness, to become the predator he'd been built into. But Gavin softened against him, and instead, the vampire closed his eyes and _relaxed,_ arms around his pet. But could he even call him that anymore?

Arms around his Gavin.

Nines went quiet, and in that silence he felt Connor relent on the hold on his wounds, cuts healing slowly still but quicker than they had before. His brother, apparently, had sensed a shift across the bonds too.

“The door is still open for you tomorrow,” Nines promised Gavin in a whisper.


	6. where’s your pet?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> quick interlude written by psychovampireboi666 to show how the boys react to Gavin leaving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please heed the warnings.  
> This chapter includes the following implied/referenced elements: rape/non-con and character death.

Watching his Gavin leave had been the hardest thing Nines had endured since waking up under water with his brother’s firm hands on his shoulders holding him below the surface. He remembered opening his eyes, seeing Amanda nearby through the glass of the tank, and _knowing_ that she was forcing Connor to do this, to make sure he finally accepted what he was. The same way she’d forced Connor to kill him to begin with, a master manipulator who had found him hiding and made Connor take the lethal bite. 

His brother had refused to feed, and Amanda solved both problems with Nines’ death.

Nines had never truly accepted what he was, even up to now, but he’d learned how to pretend, how to fake enjoying the thrill of the hunt and the blood lust that consumed his every waking thought. He’d learned to put on a mask Amanda approved of. A face that made Connor feel a little less guilty, and a quiet that allowed Silas to not feel obligated to comfort him at all times. Nines learned to follow orders, to be the attack dog, and to hope or want for nothing. He was the largest of the three, the most lethal in so many ways, but the weakest at heart if you asked Amanda. And even though no one ever did, she made it very well known what her opinion was.

He loved his brothers, and his death hadn’t been their fault. He hadn’t blamed either of them. Not even Connor with his hand around his throat, throwing his fist into his face trying to get him knocked out. He’d understood later that Connor had meant to spare him pain, to turn him once he wasn’t awake anymore, but Connor had paused when he’d heard Nines speak. “It’s _alright,_ Connor. I _understand,_ and it’s alright.” Connor had paused, and he’d blinked away tears. Nines had been forced to _remind_ Connor to bite him because Amanda had been nearby and expecting it.

But that moment had _shattered_ something in Connor that he’d never seen his brother able to put back together since. 

His older brothers had been broken down in different ways than he had himself. Nines had never been sure of when Amanda had found them—there’d been too much going on during that time with the pestilence ravaging the world around them--but he did remember Connor stepping in, redirecting her attention and giving him the chance to _run._ He remembered it raining that night, slipping in the mud, scraping his hand on a rock until he was on his feet again. Glancing back he remembered Silas had been the first to fall at Amanda’s hands, but Connor had been the first to _die._

So watching Gavin leave had been a lot like that. He’d felt like he was trying to get a grip and stand up from the mud again, rain pouring all around him, drowning in his own despair. Nines didn’t feel as if he’d been allowed to even get close to the surface again until he made his way down to the basement, past the broken door still left hanging from one hinge, and climbed onto the bed he’d tied Gavin to. 

This room was abhorrent, the things he’d done to Gavin here, the things he’d _stolen_ from the former hunter, they could never be replaced. But it smelled like him, and if he closed his eyes, maybe he could pretend that Gavin was there for a while.

The vampire settled there in the cold, letting his eyes spread in crystals from his skin to frost every surface it crept along. If he’d been a creature that needed to breathe, his breath would have been visible here. He wasn’t sure how long he drifted in and out of sleep before the familiar sound of Connor’s aggravated voice broke the silence of the room.

“What the fuck are you doing in _here?”_ Connor asked him.

Nines opened his eyes and looked at him, and for a moment he saw his brother as he’d been in life. He could remember the sight of his brother with more pigmentation in his skin, his eyes not red but a whiskey brown and his gaze always eagerly fixed on whoever was talking to him. 

Before their parents had been taken in the great pestilence Connor had smiled almost every day, unprompted sometimes even. It had annoyed him to no end, but Nines had rarely told him to stop. Making Connor frown back then, dealing with the sight of those sad eyes had been a consequence not worth suffering. But Connor’s entire attitude had changed almost overnight when their mother died. Nines had been young at the time, but he remembered Connor helping their father carry her out of the house and the glazed over look of tired shock his brother had worn when they’d returned. 

Connor had been a little more apathetic when he’d had to carry their father’s body out to the cart making rounds, and by the time Silas had gotten sick he’d lost that smile entirely. Nines could still vividly remember Connor forcing him to stay in the other room, sliding food under the door as he took care of their brother. It was a miracle Silas had survived it at all, although in hindsight it had probably been his healing ability latent but present enough to save his life. Nines often wondered now if Silas hadn’t wished he’d simply died from the disease then instead.

Because here they were now, Amanda’s instruments in destruction. She’d found them a few years after the plague, the three of them weary from surviving it and dealing with the aftermath of a world still struggling with diminished numbers. It had fundamentally altered their entire lives, and she’d taken advantage of that shock that lingered on even years after the event.

“Hello?” Connor snapped sarcastically, where he still stood waiting for an answer. “Where’s your pet?”

“Don’t call him that,” Nines replied, a bit defensive himself as he sat up and looked at the floor instead of Connor.

He heard his brother take a few careful steps towards him, and he imagined Connor had noticed the thin layer of ice covering everything in the room because at some point his brother stopped walking. Connor usually abused his ability to connect to others’ powers in crueler ways like refusing to let his wounds heal before, but this time he simply pulled back on the ice until the coldest thing in the room was Nines.

“Where the hell is he, Richard?” Connor asked after he’d finished. His tone was callous, and when Nines looked at him, Connor’s eyes were venomous, the same look he gave every time he was silently warning he’d get an answer one way or another. Although his brother’s gaze had once been overly friendly and _kind,_ death had hardened him in too many ways for the red his gaze wore now to ever fit the person he’d been in life. Connor had adopted a mask just like he had.

“I let him go,” Nines replied quietly. 

Connor was on him so fast that Nines hardly had time to register the fact that the other vampire was lifting him from the bed and slamming him against the far wall by his throat. “You fucking did _what?”_ Connor asked. The calm, slow way he asked the question told Nines he was about to endure some real pain. Especially if he told the truth.

“I let him go,” Nines repeated, his own voice calm, resigned to his fate. If he had to suffer at Connor’s hands for unlocking that door for Gavin, he’d do it. They’d taken enough from the former hunter already.

Connor held his gaze, growling quietly with a snarl that upturned his lips on one side of his mouth to remind Nines that he had fangs he knew how to use. But instead of tearing into his throat, Connor let go and stepped away from him slowly, walking backwards, his gaze fixed on Nines but not really _seeing_ him at all.

“You let him go, and he actually _left,”_ Connor commented, like this was a surprise to him.

“Of _course_ he fucking left,” Nines snapped, showing anger for the first time. “Wouldn’t you?”

Connor’s gaze snapped back to him, focus clearing, and he looked almost betrayed by the question. “If you think I haven’t had multiple chances to leave and didn’t, you’re a goddamn idiot,” his brother snapped. “But I stayed. For both of you. He could have done the same thing after…”

Nines’ gaze narrowed a bit, and not for the first time he wondered exactly what had happened between Gavin and Connor. The only real knowledge he had on the matter was the way Connor’s eyes had almost taken on the joy he’d had in life again after his time spent with the new vampire. And Nines knew it hadn’t just been the glee at being caught in the act either, no this had been more than Connor just wanting to make him jealous.

Gavin had _genuinely_ made Connor happy. His twisted, psychotic brother had looked almost alive for the first time in centuries because of his time spent with Gavin Reed, and Nines was jealous it had happened, but also so very sad for his brother that he’d never get that joy back.

Nines watched him for a second, his own face racked with worry, because the frightening stillness with which Connor now held himself usually preceded a massacre. But there were no people to kill here, no crowds to drain, which meant…

Ah, there it was. He felt it in the bond they shared, the flicker of attachment to Gavin’s bond. Connor was calm on the outside because he was a storm within, a flurry of flames and rage, pulling back his flowers like they were weeds that offended him. He was trying to cut Gavin out.

“Connor, don’t,” Nines warned him. Because he knew how deep Gavin ran, could see it now. He’d wanted to keep Gavin for his own, but it would be the end of his brother if he did. After everything Connor had done for himself and Silas, how could he deny him this.

But Connor’s furious glare told him that he wouldn’t stop. He’d keep planting flowers just to yank them away again until Gavin suffered for it. If Connor couldn’t keep him, he didn’t want anyone else to ever have the chance. 

“He’ll be back,” Connor told his brother in a cold tone before he turned and left the room, Nines startled and confused in his wake.


	7. hank, i was right

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please heed the warnings.  
> This chapter includes the following implied/referenced elements: rape/non-con, suicidal and alcoholic subject matter as well as referenced character death.

Gavin's eyes glowed white, reflecting the small fire he held caged in shaking hands. Dawn would wash over the homestead in a few hours, and he flattened himself further against the cold dirt, tracking the bright _blips_ that flit across his brain as bodies paced, keeping watch over the main house. He had trained to become a predator in these woods, was still meant to be learning how to stay alive in these woods. He sighed, pressing a palm against the burning property line, pain lancing through his arm like electricity as he pushed. 

Flame burst out of his hand, forcing him to pull it away before he hurt himself. He watched the blood drip from his smoking skin as it rewove itself over his fingers, shivering as he pulled the borrowed jacket tighter around his shoulders.

His sire kept his word, unlocking the doors and choking out the request that Gavin feed again before he left. They curled up together at the foot of the bed, Gavin straddling Richard's thighs as he hummed against his neck, teeth like hooks sunk into his carotid artery. 

When he was done Gavin climbed off of him, abandoning a needy and pliant Richard, flushed and aching on the sheets, to dig through the pile of belongings previously taken off of his body. He didn't look at him as he dressed himself in silence, hands clumsy as he struggled to button his jeans. They had torn his jacket off of him, before, and he made a face as he brushed a fingertip over an offered replacement, inky black leather and too big for him.

He didn't look back, walking away from the vampire holding the door open, the house, the two other bonded somewhere inside; following the faint scent of his own footsteps leading _out_ to find his way home. He walked for hours, arriving in the darkness as he approached his father's ranch property. The will left the it to the both of them, but he knew now that he was considered _deceased_ as the sickness inside him locked him out of his own damned home.

* * *

Two weeks was a very long time when you couldn’t find someone you cared about. At least with Cole there’d been a body, a casket to close and lower. With Gavin? He had nothing but constant panic and doubt and _hope_ that was probably beyond reaching at this point. He was Mrs. Darling waiting by the window for his son to just come home, never realizing that Neverland had truly trapped Gavin in death now.

If the Stern brothers were the Lost Boys, Connor was Peter Pan cackling with his chaotic need to bring more dead boys to his island for endless games. Gavin would never grow old now, and while Nines had been the one to actually make him that way, Connor had reacted to the loss of his presence back at their mansion like Pan himself. Nines had new bruises and cuts for letting Gavin leave, and Silas had done his best to pacify them both to no avail. Connor was inconsolable and that manifested in rage with him.

But Hank didn’t know any of that. He didn’t know that the adopted son he thought he’d lost would come back with fangs. He didn’t know that Sumo’s ears perking up and the low whine of doubt he made was the dog mourning Gavin because it _smelled_ like Gavin, but a _dead_ Gavin, and the animal just didn’t _understand._

Hank had started drinking again.

So he was slow to finally get up and check on what Sumo was upset about, making his way to the door of Gavin’s house--he’d let himself in a week before hoping that if Gavin came back it would be to here--and opened it. He wasn’t at all prepared for what he saw.

“This better not be another drunken nightmare where you fly away again,” Hank muttered, stepping onto the porch. There were tears in his eyes. The man was weary, but also hoping Gavin was real.

* * *

Gavin shuddered as he heard Hank speak, and he put a hand over his mouth, recoiling from the gate at the end of the driveway as he looked away to wipe at his eyes. His hands hadn't stopped shaking since he had let go of Richard, and he covered his face, a small noise escaping him as he took another step backwards into the shade of the trees. 

His lover's blood cooled his overheating body as it flowed through him, and he was growing more light-headed the longer he spent under the sun.

* * *

It was the way Gavin stepped back in fear that sobered Hank up, and he was muttering variations of 'fuck' as he crossed the distance and stepped into the shadows to chase Gavin without hesitance. Hank pulled him into his arms.

"It's okay," he assured Gavin. "Whatever happened, it's okay. We can talk about it. Fuck, we’ll fix whatever it was. Please just come inside already?"

* * *

He flinched as Hank came closer, stiffening under the heavy hands and whimpering as he tried not to wrench away from the embrace. He was shaking his head _no_ as he tried to put some space between them, putting his hands up to keep Hank back, coughing into his elbow to hide the fangs he sunk into his bottom lip. He half hoped Hank would think he was sick and keep his fucking distance. He couldn't do this if Hank was holding him.

Gavin nodded at him, curling in on himself as he glanced up at the house to avoid Hank's eye.

* * *

The flinching was terrible, and it hurt Hank not because he felt like it was directed at him personally, but because Gavin was so _afraid_. He hadn't seen him like this since his father had been alive to torment him.

"You can talk to me when you're ready, Son, but for now let's just...get inside," Hank told him. He let go of Gavin to give him some space--even though he didn't want to--but motioned for him to follow him back to the house.

As he turned back towards it, they were both greeted by the sight of Sumo standing on the porch looking hesitantly at Gavin. The animal paused for only a moment before trotting over and nudging Gavin's hand gently with his nose. Because _why wasn't the human petting him like he always did_?

* * *

Gavin shuddered as Hank pulled back, and he pulled his hood up and low to shield his face as they turned towards the house. He bit his lip and gently nudged Sumo away from him with his knee, looking away when the dog let out a low whine. He shied away, trembling as his breath hitched and he tried to cover as much of his skin as he could, swaying a little on his feet.

* * *

Hank knew something was wrong with the way Gavin reacted to Sumo, and he had to bite back the urge to ask. "I hope you don't mind my staying here," he commented as he walked back into the house. "You had me really worried there for a while. I couldn't just...I had to fucking take care of the place until you came back."

He didn't often say that he cared in so many words, but he did it with actions and pretending that he'd stopped by the ranch to take care of it until Gavin got back instead of because he'd been worried out of his mind was easier for both of them.

* * *

Guilt and shame took hold of him, and he ached at the admission, the way Hank's voice broke over _you came back_ and _I couldn't_ , and the feeling grew hot until it poured from his eyes and mouth.

He followed Hank inside, falling motionless as the scent of _home_ hit him in the face, puncturing through his tongue to force him to take another gasping breath, body desperately trying to swallow another bite of something he had almost forgotten. 

He could taste it in the air, marks left in his home by the humans he used to belong with, like an aura fueled by blood burned into his eyelids. Hank and Sumo, strongly in this room. Elijah, other fucking hunters who knew better.

He got ahold of the older scents then, beginning to sob as he recognized traces of his father, stale and soaked in liquor. Tina, faded and weak with how long it's been since she set foot here, but still there, buried for him. The nearly _overwhelming_ way the whole place was steeped in the smell of Gavin himself, before his first death. It changed like cologne with vampire blood inside him, and it shocked him to his core to suddenly know it was another thing lost. This place was nowhere he could or should be roaming, now that he was no longer human. 

The fire was warm, but the garden was dark. He couldn't bear being inside the greenhouse. The sirebond tree sheathed itself in a thick icy armor, bursting through from underneath the silver bark, and the spring was frozen over. He could see from here that the cold was enough to burn _him_ a little if he even tried to touch it. His lover, _Connor_ , had torn all of the flowers out except the unburning ones, which he had crushed into ash. Their bond was splintered, blood mixing with toxin as each rotted bloom was purged, ripped away. Connor had worked for _hours_. Easy as pulling weeds.

He crumpled to the floor under the weight, crawling to a corner, back against the wall, wheezing for breath he didn't need as his panic took over and skyrocketed.

* * *

Hank looked at him, and he hesitated before moving to the kitchen to grab a beer. He grabbed two bottles and brought one over to offer to Gavin, wanting to hug him instead but knowing that Gavin' seemed too skittish for that. There was no telling what he'd been put through.

He crouched down a bit so that he didn’t tower over Gavin, and Sumo walked over to simply lay at Gavin’s feet. “You don’t have to talk about it, but I’m here,” Hank assured him.

* * *

Gavin hid from Hank under his hood, too much of a coward to show his face to the human. He stared at the fire as he calmed, pulling it up to ring his head, lazy as it revolved, blocking the tree from his sight. He could still feel the snow against his hands, biting at his skin and heart. He forced himself out of his head, taking a deep breath as he shrunk further away from Sumo and pulled his numb hands out from the too-big sleeves. His movements were clumsy, words garbled as his fingers struggled to hold the right shapes.

**_I am so fucking sorry._ **

**_I love you._ **

**_Please don't kill me._ **

* * *

Hank was suddenly even more furious with whoever had done this to Gavin, and he knew right away that the way the boy was hiding his face meant something _horrible_ had happened. His clothes weren't his own, and the way he hid within them was troubling.

As was Gavin falling back into mutism.

"Stop apologizing, son," Hank told him gently. It was an uncharacteristically calm down he didn't adopt often, but completely necessary here. "Why the fuck would I kill you? Can't you tell that I've _missed_ you? Now, tell me who hurt you so that I can kill _them_."

* * *

Gavin shuddered at the sorrow he could hear lacing Hank's voice, tears choking him as he inhaled and tasted the whiskey in the air. Hank really was going to drink himself to death this time, and Gavin whimpered as he moved, shoving the hood off and turning to face Hank, looking him in the eye as he fell unnaturally still.

He lost his nerve and broke the eye contact as he dropped the hand hiding his mouth, revealing a set of teeth too sharp to mark Gavin as a human, misplaced in his jaw where they gleamed in the low light.

* * *

He stilled for a moment, because there was shock there at the sight. Hank hadn't been sure what he'd expected, but vampire fangs hadn't been it. Maybe some bruises from a beating or something? Not actual death. And he was enraged by it. So enraged that he had to sign back instead of talk, because his voice was too uneven now. It would give him away.

 **_You died alone and I didn't know it was even happening._ ** And Hank's hand stilled after that, because he'd never forgive himself for it. **_This changes nothing. You will always have a home with me._ **

Elijah would be harder to convince, and there would probably be hunter associates that questioned it aggressively, but this was _Gavin_ . If any of them wanted to drive a stake through his heart, they'd have to get past Hank first. Hank had been a hunter long enough to recognize that not all monsters were truly _monsters_ , especially those changed against their will.

* * *

Gavin's eyes glowed as he watched Hank's words, and the guilt stabbed through him, bleeding loathing as Hank's pain sunk into him. There was nothing he could do to fix the fucking mess he had made, and for one _blindingly painful_ moment, he wished Silas was more like Connor, so that he could have watched Gavin die and laughed while he did it.

The hurt was too much, ripping an agonized sound from his throat as he trembled, scrambling forwards to fall into Hank's arms, already open and reaching for him as they collided. He shoved his face against Hank's shoulder, turned away from the human's throat as he broke open, the sounds of his weeping poorly muffled as he tried not to start screaming.

* * *

Hank held him close without hesitation, only pulling away a bit to glance at Sumo when the dog whined in distress, wondering what was wrong. He could sense the humans were having an emotional time and didn't understand again.

"Oh, son," Hank told him quietly, holding him close. "You're safe now." It was easy to adopt a soothing tone now, throwing himself into comforting Gavin instead of worrying about his own emotions with things.

* * *

He could only cry harder for a moment as Hank tried to calm him down, voice rumbling softly and arms tucking him closer. Gavin stiffened as his mouth started to water, cutting the inside up with his teeth as he flinched and threw himself _away_ from Hank, shaking his head no. He got as far as the door, chest heaving as he pressed his forehead to the wood, eyes and fangs throbbing as he tracked the human's heartbeat. He would not harm humans like this, and if it came down to hurting Hank specifically, Gavin would drive a stake into his own heart.

He bared his fangs as he turned against the door, anger warming him now, gently pushing his fear away. Hank was wrong, he wasn't safe now. Gavin knew he never had been.

**_I needed to see you._ **

**_I wanted to say goodbye._ **

**_I cannot stay here._ **

* * *

Hank watched him, but he wasn't afraid. He could hold his own if it came to a fight, no matter what Gavin seemed to think. Still, the hunter was cautious and did keep his distance.

His expression of worry shifted to anger at the words though. "No fuck that. _Fuck_ that. You're not leaving! We will figure this out!"

* * *

He growled in frustration, wavering as he tasted Hank's desperation, and he pressed his hands over the hole the promise carved in his bones, touching flame with his skin to keep warm as his body grew cold. He grit his teeth as he forced his hands to speak, unwilling to let them choke as well.

**_Stop it!_ **

**_Please don't lie to me._ **

**_I can't do this if you pretend._ **

* * *

He tried not to be hurt by it, because he understood what this was probably like, but he cared too much to let it go. Hank had never been one to fucking back down.

"This is _different_ than what happened before," he snapped. "You have a home here. With me. You'll be safe. Elijah and anyone else can get fucked if that's what you're afraid of, but don't you dare walk out that door! Christ, I just got you back and now you want me to what? Let you run off and be alone? _No_."

* * *

He _flinched_ , jerking away as if Hank had slapped him. He flattened against the door, cowering and clawing at the wood as panic loomed over him like the shape of his father holding a belt, instinct screaming at him to _get away_.

 _You have a home here_ became another prison, another room with a locked door and a corner for him to scrape himself into like dirt.

" _P -_ ," he tried, eyes glowing bright as he let the fire grow hot. The choke scalded his tongue, and his jaw bled as he snapped his teeth in the empty air. His voice cracked, weak and wobbly and soft as he forced it out of his throat with a whimper.

"H-Ha-Hank, p-p-ple- _pleas-se_."

* * *

Hank frowned, scowled really, ignoring the way Sumo whined nearby when he sensed they were distressed. And suddenly he felt like an ass. He wanted to know what had happened to Gavin, but was he being too demanding? Would forcing the boy to let him help only push him away?

But what if he left and never came back this time?

"How...can I help?" Hank finally asked, resigning himself to the not knowing and refraining from pushing Gavin the way he wanted to.

* * *

He panted, shaking his head sadly as exhaustion piled onto him, straining under its own weight. Hank _couldn't_ help him, but he owed the life he once had to this man, a hundred times over, and if Gavin never repaid that debt, he at least owed Hank the chance to try.

 **_Please don't lock me inside_ **, he signed quickly, mouth numb as he swallowed the blood.

* * *

Oh Christ. Hank's anger was reborn after every clue Gavin gave him about his captivity. He wanted to hurt the people who had hurt Gavin. He wanted to hurt them _badly_.

"I'd never do that to you," Hank assured him, now understanding the reaction to his insisting Gavin stay. "I just...I want you fucking safe. You know that right?"

* * *

He turned away again to avoid the question, eyes narrowing as they lingered over the empty bottles, beer and whiskey crowded together on the coffee table. The sight of them scattered made the room look so much like he remembered, when this was his father's house, and the only thing he'd wanted back then too was to flee.

He looked back at Hank with dead eyes and shaking hands. He wanted it gone, bottles out, poured down the drain like before. He wanted to protect Hank from it, the thirst, before it controlled him. Like Gavin, now.

**_I want you to be safe too_ **

**_Hank, please, I can't-_ **

**_Do you trust me?_ **

* * *

Hank's expression tightened a bit as he realized Gavin was looking around, reading the evidence in the room. His own vices had never been a secret, and he'd never gone as far with them as Gavin's father had, but Hank could see how it might trigger some traumatic memories and he hated himself for not keeping the place cleaner. But he'd been a mess. He'd really worried Gavin was gone for good.

"I'm a weak man in some ways," Hank acknowledged, trying to sound bitter but sounding more tired than anything. "I'll try to do better." It was all he could promise really.

"But, shit, of _course_ I trust you," he added, a bit alarmed that Gavin felt the need to ask at all.

* * *

**_Trust me to tell you the truth, then. If I stay here, I will kill you, and I would rather kill myself than do that. I'll fucking see Death a third time before I hurt you._ **

He shut his eyes, slumping against the door as his adrenaline fizzled out, leaving a cavity aching in his chest.

* * *

"Fucking hell, Gavin, I can look after myself," Hank insisted, almost bitterly defensive to start. But he understood the hesitance. "Goddamn it." He moved to take a seat against the wall nearby, and sumo shuffled over to lay down between them. He didn't understand why his humans were so upset and on the floor, but he'd be there with them.

"So what do we do then?" Hank asked after a while. "I'm not ready to lose you again."

* * *

His body relaxed, even as tears bled anew, making him feel weak and emptied. His body froze up as he crawled into the greenhouse, choking on tiny, burning guilts that bound his ankles and wrists. He could feel Silas startle awake, too far away and held fast with fiery hands. Gavin felt like a shadow, another spirit haunting his kindred after their death, tasting the wine from the goblet that was Silas' bleeding heart and drinking until he must surely empty. Hollowed out from the inside with a blade or teeth, and tossed aside onto the floor when he was done. He hated himself, trembling as apologies burned his tongue.

He wished, just for a moment, to sleep again.

He forced himself to return to his body where Hank was, staring at him like he wanted to ask Gavin where in the hell he went just now. Hank was wrong, he'd already lost him, Gavin gasped as more tears came, a thread of calm he didn't deserve flowing through the trees. His hands were clumsy.

**_I do not know._ **

* * *

Silas had sat up on his bed, blinking for a few seconds in the dark, ignoring the way Markus whispered from nearby that it was better to cut ties, to let the new vampire leave them for good. But he also knew how attached Richard was, how heartbroken Connor was, and the potential Gavin had to free them all.

The vampire tried to send back a sense of comfort, a calming mist across the stretched bond so that he would know that he didn't Gavin waking him. He never would. He ignored the way Markus insisted it was selfish, and sent back a simple thought of his own.

**_Be safe. Stay alive._ **

For Hank it was startling to see, like a lightswitch had been flicked off for just a moment, the kid almost in a trance. The hunter could guess it was some kind of bond, he knew enough from Gavin's own research to assume as much.

"Just tell me who it was and if I can kill them?" Hank asked.

* * *

Gavin's eyes narrowed, and despite his exhaustion, he couldn't stop the sharp slide of silver fangs as they locked into place in his jaw, lip curled in a snarl as his fingertips began to burn alongside the fire. A gleaming flash of white swallowed the red in his eyes, lighting up the room and reflecting off the bottles in a soft glow. His heightened emotional state made him protective, but his predatory instinct forced him into aggression against the implied threat, blood burning as he growled.

Gavin let out a shuddering breath as he felt a sense of sleepy peace float through the havenbond, his kindred's voice lifting the haze and dulling his teeth.

He flinched away from Hank, hand covering his mouth as he realized what he had been doing, and he squeezed his eyes shut, signing **_No_ ** and **_I'm sorry_ ** as he backed away.

* * *

The snarl was startling, but not the scariest thing he'd seen as a hunter, and because it was Gavin, it just mad Hank angrier on his behalf. But also what the _fuck_ he wasn't allowed to kill whoever had done this?

"What the _hell_ did they do to you? I mean, aside from the fucking obvious, I just...Jesus Christ, Gav. Help me understand?" Hank asked him, not judgmental, just worried. And, okay, maybe judging whoever had turned Gavin. Hardcore. He wasn’t sure he could respect the answer to _not_ kill whoever was responsible if given the chance.

* * *

Gavin shut his eyes, unwilling to look at Hank as a whimper escaped him, and he hid his face in his hands to calm down, clinging to Silas' words. He didn't know what he wanted to say, and _how_ to say it, much less to someone as important to him as Hank. He pushed the whole truth away from him for a moment, and started with something small, chest heaving once he unlocked his jaw and let himself breathe. He shivered, opening his eyes, staring at the wall as he spoke, voice cracked, words unruly as they tumbled over each other.

  
"H-H- _f-fuck_ , Ha-ank, I w-was _right_."

* * *

Hank blinked a few times as he took a moment to process that. And the way he had to reach over and pet Sumo for a moment was proof enough of just how _not_ calm he was. "Blood bond, huh?" he finally asked aloud, afraid of the answer.

Was Gavin a prisoner even here? Would he ever escape whoever had turned him?

* * *

Gavin bit his lip, sighing as he cut into the skin, and tried to catch Hank's eye, watching his fury grow. He knew Hank wasn't angry with _him_ , but he knew how hot the man's rage could burn. He let out a tiny, choked laugh as he spoke again.

"Three," he whispered, treading carefully, not sure how close to the truth whatever Hank was imagining was.

" _He_ would h-have been happy," Gavin mumbled, eyes glowing bright. "I f-found them, the S-Sterns, like he wanted," he said, voice small.

* * *

He glared at Gavin then, not angry at Gavin, but furious that he still felt the need to make that monster of a father happy even after his death. The man had done nothing but torment Gavin. "Fuck what would have made him happy," Hank snapped. "Are you telling me you did this for him?"

Hank sighed, bringing a hand up to wipe it over his face like it might sober him up a bit. The truth was, he wasn't nearly drunk enough for this conversation. "Did you...walk right into their trap?" he finally asked, already knowing the answer. "Why didn't you tell me? I would have backed you up."

* * *

"L-Like _fuck_ I was g-gonna get you k-killed too," he hissed, looking away with a grimace as the taste of Hank's emotions soured in his mouth.

"I _knew_ I was fucking r-right, okay, I didn't do it f-for _h-h-him_ , goddamnit, I did it for _me_ ," he growled. "I wanted Eli to shut the f-fuck up and s-stop trying to take the house."

* * *

Hank's expression shifted from worry to pure rage. "He's doing what now?"

* * *

"He can _try,"_ Gavin growled, "he'll be f-fucking lucky if I don't burn it down before I s-see him take it from me," His lip curled in a snarl. "Eli told me Dad w-was going to cut m-me out of the will, and - and I know the bastard m-might have been lying, but this ranch was my _h-home."_

He let out a strangled, frustrated yell when he started crying with a vengeance, and he stared up at the bright _blaze_ in shock, the frost near him starting to melt away into steam from the heat of his anger.

* * *

It wasn't until Sumo whined and lifted his head to look at Gavin with worried eyes that Hank realized something was going on. There was a slight steam radiating from Gavin. Hank didn't see it the way the vampires would in the bond, but he saw enough to be worried. "We'll figure it out. That fuck isn't owning an inch of this property, okay?"

From where he'd laid back down on his bed back at the mansion, Silas frowned again, sending out another wave of calm. _**Are you okay?**_

* * *

"I - Hank, we _have_ to tell Elijah about this, about me, or he'll think I'm trying to - to hide it. He'll g-get it in his f-fucking head that this is my _karma,"_ Gavin scoffed. "My fucking _judgement,_ \- I've finally become the goddamned m-monster I was always meant to be, and he's _right,_ I _am_ a m-m-monm- _fucking!_ Fuck! I can't - he'll hunt me, given the chance."

He sighed, rubbing his eyes as he muttered. "I don't know. Maybe I should just l-let him _keep it,_ fucking property doesn't even know me anymore."

The heat cooled a little, but the fire was still so _bright,_ and he leaned into the small tenderness Silas gifted him, letting his kindred help him control the rage as he laid in the glass threshold. Gavin didn't know how to answer him, the question was too small to try and force everything inside of him to fit.

A familiar flicker sparked out of his hand, icy flame that floated in the air like _fool's fire._ The wisp drifted away from him, content to return further inside the greenhouse, dancing over the water to tease the fish out from where they were hiding.

* * *

"Fuck that," Hank told him. "This is _your_ home, I'm not letting him take it from you if I have shove the property rights papers up his ass myself," he assured Gavin. Because the kid had lost enough thanks to his blood relations, no way was he letting his asshole brother take this too.

"And why does he have to know about the fangs? They don't change who you are, Gav," Hank pointed out. "It's none of his business."

* * *

Gavin let out a choked laugh, coughing as a sob slid out of his chest and his teeth gouged into the inside of his mouth.

"They don't - Christ, H-Hank, how m-much have you had today? You don't - Hank, y-you don't f-f- _fucking_ know what they - what they di- _!"_ He _choked,_ writhing and touching his throat as he gagged on his bloody words. He tried to keep calm next to the fire, soothing the panic as it crept closer like the frost.

He wanted to tell Hank the truth, but how could he? What if it broke this too?

* * *

"It changes _what_ you are, not _who_ ," Hank insisted, giving him a look that said he wouldn't budge on this.

* * *

Gavin sighed, looking down and fidgeting with his hands, playing with the sleeve of Richard's inside the borrowed jacket. He pulled his trembling hands out to try and continue.

_**Even if Elijah and I make peace** _

_**Eventually, I will have to go back** _

* * *

"Why?" Hank demanded, not seeing any reason for it. Had the vampire that had turned him really dug his fangs that deep? Hank wasn't ready to let him go yet. He didn't want to lose another son.

* * *

Gavin sighed, looking at Hank with tired eyes. He was already beginning to understand the inherent differences between being _human_ and _vampire_ as he considered the question. The wisp dipped in and out of the pond, the white flame burning even under the water.

 _ **Blood,**_ he replied, _**or I will starve.**_

* * *

The fact that he was signing again was troubling, but when he communicated what he did, Hank understood. "You can't feed on animals?"

Sumo gave him a look. "Not you, you sassy animal," Hank teased before looking back at Gavin, more worried than ever. "These Sterns--they're as bad as the history books say?"

* * *

Gavin gagged at the thought, shaking his head, and then frowning as Hank mentioned the Sterns by name. He looked back up with wide eyes, biting his lip as he tried to decide which pieces of the truth he could bear to let go of.

_**That's... complicated. I can't explain it. It's something that I understand now, that I didn't when I was human.** _

_**Blood lust is like a fever, but it burns too hot, until you panic, your heart skips a beat as it starts to pound. You are so hungry you can almost feel your death hover, crawling inside you until it takes over. It's like being crazy drunk, violent, or completely numb as the fever freezes inside you.** _

_**But if you... are weak, like me, and give in instead of starving, and taste it, it's like finding peace, like calming down after screaming. But it's also hazy, soft and easy to get lost in the taste, or the power, or the lust.** _

_**I won't - I've only had blood like mine, vamp blood, and I will die before I take it from a human. I have to go back, or I will waste away.** _

_**T**_ _ **he Sterns are my bonded,**_ he admitted, squeezing his eyes shut, having long since looked away, unable to watch Hank's face as he watched Gavin speak.

* * *

"That's not weak, that's surviving," Hank pointed out quietly. He sighed, shifting to take a seat with his back against the wall near Gavin. "While I applaud your effort, can we really fucking trust these guys? Bonded or not, Jesus, Gav that's...I trust you. I'm just not sure I trust them."

Hank was trying here, trying his hardest, but the idea of letting Gavin leave to walk back into a den of vampires--who, if he remembered right, were notoriously violent in their feeding frenzies--terrified him.

"God, you can't expect me to just let this happen okay?" Hank told him. "I'm going to want...I need to know you'll come back."

* * *

He grit his teeth, his insides tearing at him as they contined to navigate through this _minefield_ of a conversation, narrowly avoiding collisions with explosive truths.

He sighed, wincing as he cleared his throat and spat some of the blood onto the floor, staining the grains in the wood.

"I trust S-Silas," he whispered, meeting Hank's eye. "He w-will not allow m-m-me to be trapped."

* * *

Hank looked at the blood with mild confusion, but Sumo looked distressed. It was probably the fangs, he reasoned. He'd been a hunter for years. He could handle this.

"Which one is Silas?" he asked after a while. He'd read the research, but not as much as Gavin had. He hadn't thought they'd ever actually run into the bastards.

* * *

"W-We didn't know about h-him," Gavin said, tears falling silently as he watched the wisp flicker under the water's surface, scaring away the ghostly fish into a deeper water. He shivered as the cold crept closer to where he was hunched over, and he let the fire burn brighter to melt it away. His body's eyes began emitting a white glow in the room again as he pressed a warm hand against his havenbond.

He closed his eyes for a moment, tracing gentle flame across the distance separating them. He pressed his other palm, hand shaking, to the bleeding bond he shared with his lover, rotted flowers frozen underneath the ice where he stood.

Gavin concentrated on the _force_ flowing in his veins, granted by the visceral potency of Connor's blood. Gavin was not quite as practiced at it as his lover, but he was successful in bringing the pale blue blooms into existence, each glowing with his light at their core. The _forget-me-nots_ sprouted above the stream, luminous petals floating through the air like his fool's fire. Some drifted to puncture the pond's surface like stars, others blew out to catch against the thorns of his lover's bond, sharp, bloody, and curled protectively around his sirebond in an embrace.

"The l-l-little one has a _twin."_

* * *

Hank did a double take of complete confusion this time, because what the actual fuck? There had been a third fucking... _what_? He watched Gavin, and he recognized something was going on that he didn't understand, because the kid had that far off glazed look again, but also...

"How the hell could they hide that?" Hank asked. "And more importantly, _why_ would they?"

* * *

"They're identic-cal," he murmured, though he _knew,_ if he ever saw either one of them again, even if it was years from now, he would never mistake one twin for the other.

"Silas brought me back to l-life, when I died again," he whispered, flinching as he braced himself for Hank's fury.

* * *

"I'm sorry he did what now?" Hank asked, blinking a few times. He could believe a lot of things, but that... "There's no research that shows vampires are capable of necromancy outside of turning people, how the fuck wold that even work?" It wasn't that he wasn't grateful Gavin was still there, he just couldn't wrap his mind around the _how._

* * *

"It's not n-necromancy, Hank, I - I don't know how to explain it," Gavin sighed, biting his lip. "It's only h-him, and there's r-r-rules, it - it _hurts him_ when he does it.

Turning f-fucking _changes you,_ gives you power we've never even fucking _s-seen_ before. I - I was dying, too weak for the enha-enha-cef- _fucking_ fast h-healing to keep up, a-and I bled out on the floor. Hank, _fuck,_ the next thing I r-rem-remember was his _voice,_ calling m- _m-mf-! Fuck,_ I could _hear him,_ a thread I could f-follow like a lifeline, and he woke m-me up. He was fucking _h-holding_ me, bleeding as he lent me l-life."

* * *

Hank listened to him, and half of it still didn't make sense to him at all. Maybe he was getting too old for this shit. The hunter looked at Gavin, then stood up and started cleaning the bottles from the table. "Well I'm grateful to the bastard for bringing you back," he assured Gavin.

It was easier to say he was grateful for any of those monsters with his back turned. He wasn't ready to accept the Sterns were good yet.

* * *

"He- he started to tell me. About _her,_ Hank, f-fucking _Elijah_ was right. If I can - if I g-go back, I'll just l-l-let - I-I'll give them what they w-want, until I can get close, and _then I will kill her."_ He snarled, eyes flashing brightly for a moment.

* * *

"Give them what they _want,_ " Hank snarled. "What about what you want? You get how fucked up that is right? You are not a means to an end, there are other ways to fucking find her than you letting them use you."

* * *

"That's not - that's not what I - it may have began l-like that, but it's - it's _different now,"_ Gavin began to weep, almost pleading with Hank, flinching away again, covering his head as he began to choke on his words again as he begged.

"Please, don't hurt them, I - I don't want you to h-hurt them, please, Hank, _please_ don't hurt me."

The fire blazed brightly, and the scorpion grasses bloomed faster, another seedling bursting into tiny glowing blossoms at the base of the bloodbond tree. The sprout had burst through the frozen ground, roots buried deep under the ice and fed by the dormant hot spring.

* * *

He huffed a bit in a scoff, pausing in cleaning up the cans to fold his arms over his chest and turn to look at Gavin. He'd heard any number of similar things from victims before. It wasn't entirely uncommon for people to get attached to vampires in particular, despite what they were, or maybe because of it. As a hunter he'd always assumed it was manipulation, and he was struggling with that now.

But if hurting them would hurt Gavin, he really didn't have a goddamn choice did he?

"For now," he promised. It was all he _could_ promise. "But if they try some shady shit..."

* * *

He shook his head, hands shaking as they pressed apologies into the earth, the waters of pond and spring, delicate luminous petals and the tree that felt like stone. His hands burned brightly as he caressed his bonds, reassuring himself that they had not begun to fade. He counted in his head, whimpering as he couldn't force a deep enough breath into his lungs.

* * *

"Will you at least tell me where you're going? What the address is just in case?" Hank asked him.

Hank had no way of knowing that through their bond Connor was tentatively allowing the flowers to return, slowly growing from ashes, but still gradual in their growth. A promise for more if he just came back.

* * *

Gavin gasped as Connor's warmth brought him red blooms, and he wept, a small smile lighting up his face. Gavin burned the ash away, giving the new flowers room to grow, and he stilled, nearly forgetting his panic as the wisp danced through the water, shoaling with the gilded fish. He hadn't realized how much he _missed_ the life Connor breathed into the garden, and he sighed, coming back to where Hank was waiting for him.

"I will, Hank, I promise. I n-need - I _want_ to go back. If I am to - to live this way, and still see you, I need to learn _more,_ I need to l-let him, let _them_ teach me how to do this, so I don't h-hurt anyone."

* * *

"I don't fucking like it," Hank reminded him. And he'd _keep_ reminding him until he had any clear proof that these vampires were not the actual worst. "But I trust you, kid."

* * *

He deflated as relief hit him in the chest, Hank's words calming him faster than he was expecting, and he grit his teeth, forcing his frozen limbs to move. Connor's blood carried strength back into his body as he stood on shaky feet, hobbling closer towards the other man. Gavin made a tiny noise when Hank opened his arms, letting him decide if he wanted to come closer, and he calmed the flame, sighing as he stepped forward and let Hank pull him into a hug.

* * *

Hank was grateful for the hug. He knew what it meant for Gavin to allow it, and he knew that it was probably more for his benefit than Gavin's--the kid was selfless to a fault at times--but he embraced it anyway.

"I trust you," he repeated just to make sure Gavin knew.

And somewhere in the distance, Connor felt that relief that Gavin had, and the vampire frowned. Who else was making him feel safe? He suddenly wanted to find out, a possessive jealousy flickering in him.

* * *

"I know," he whispered, trembling as he pressed his face against Hank's shoulder, relaxing in his hold. He gently laid his palms onto the bloodbond tree, hands brushing a lazy warmth over both of his lovebonds. He paused to caress the edge of one of the new petals, heart clenching as the sparking flame kept him from truly touching it.

_**Hush, Love.** _

* * *

"Okay, so, do you need to go right back?" Hank asked carefully, afraid of the answer since Gavin was finally letting him hug him. He selfishly wanted to keep the kid there with him where he knew he'd be safe.

"I can deal with Elijah in the meantime, keep him off your back," he added. That should be something Gavin didn't have to worry about while he found a way to control his bloodlust or whatever.

In his room Connor shivered a bit at the term of endearment. He wasn't sure how to respond to it, because he knew what it _meant_ through the feeling in their bond.

* * *

"Not - not f-for a few days, at least, unless I can't - unless something changes, a-and I have to," he replied, lip curling in a snarl as Hank mentioned his brother.

Gavin sighed, calming as he distracted himself by indulging in keeping his palm pressed to the tree, smiling as he felt a small warmth inside it. He laid down, cradled close by frozen roots, tilting his face up to feel the snow as it stung his face.

* * *

"I know, Gav, I know," Hank assured him, because he hated the cocksucker too, but this was...he'd have to talk to Elijah or his brother would get suspicious. He'd already gotten desperate enough to allude towards Gavin's disappearance without outright saying it--which really did prove how scared Hank had been. "Look, I'll go make sure your bed is ready, okay? You just take a moment Sumo and, I don't fucking know since you can't breathe, just...take a moment." And Hank stood to go make sure Gavin's bed was presentable.

Connor turned his head towards the direction of Nines' room when he felt his brother's cold presence in the bond. His first instinct was possessive jealousy, but Nines soothed it with a promise he wasn't looking for a fight.

In the bond, Connor relaxed a bit and actually reached for Gavin, flowers growing among the roots he laid in. They were small, slow growing, but there.

* * *

Gavin sagged forward as Hank moved away, and he shakily made his way over to the couch, letting himself fall face first to burrow into the soft cushions. He used to fall asleep on this couch when he and Elijah would stay up all night watching terrible monster movies when their dad wasn't home. But that was a long time ago. His eyes went blurry, drifting closed as he embraced the easy warmth, and it settled over him like a blanket.

Connor cradled him, and Gavin curled closer to press his forehead to the ice, happy to see the tiny blooms glowed against the snow. He traced a careful warmth over the frozen sirebond, a whispered kiss, and he was asleep before he could see the ice begin to melt.

* * *

Hank watched him for a moment, cleaning up the living room before making his way back over. He shushed Sumo away--the dog was particular protective of Gavin now, and didn't seem to want to leave his side--and reached down to pick Gavin up.

He could remember days gone by when they'd done the same thing with Cole whenever he'd fallen asleep, carrying the boy to his room and tucking him. Hank carried Gavin now with the same love and gentleness he had with his blood son. Gavin was just as much family, and he'd literally fight anyone who argued otherwise.

When he got to Gavin's room, Hank placed him in the bed easily, bringing the blanket up around him. Sumo lept onto the bed--very careful in his movements to not startle the vampire--and curled up against his side. "Get some rest," Hank told both of them, risking one more worried glance before he left the room to go finish cleaning the house.


End file.
